What would MetaFilter Water taste like?

August 23, 2015 11:16 AM

Artisanal water is a thing. Products include Fat Water, which contains 2 grams (20 calories) of Bulletproof XCT oil (related: buttered coffee chain). More conventionally, Whole Foods recently sold three stalks of asparagus in 16 oz of water for $6 for a short while. There is artesian Norwegian water, which some allege is “identical to the municipal water supply”. In Texas, Scottish artisanal water is free (though must purchase $2,900 meal to accompany). There is Canadian glacier water, poured by water butlers in Ireland but costing 53 Canadian dollars per bottle. In a Los Angeles bistro, you can drink Berg, a “glacial water from western Greenland” harvested from 15,000-year-old glaciers and displaying “sweet” and “smooth” tones ($20 per 0.75 liter bottle). And finally the Timmy Brothers explain their artisanal water journey (“It’s like opening up a Mark Twain story, except without the racist parts”).
posted by Wordshore (74 comments total)

Blue.
posted by box at 11:17 AM on August 23, 2015 [7 favorites]

Like a plate of beans.
posted by Splunge at 11:18 AM on August 23, 2015 [5 favorites]

One would expect it tastes like water.
posted by Solomon at 11:23 AM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

I hope this gets people to pay attention to the Timmy Brothers. God knows I tried.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:23 AM on August 23, 2015 [3 favorites]

Meanwhile, water that is perfectly drinkable and often indistinguishable from the expensive bottled stuff is basically too cheap to bother metering. Is this kind of like lighting a cigar with a $100 bill for people who don't smoke?
posted by indubitable at 11:24 AM on August 23, 2015 [3 favorites]

I bought a MetaFilter piggy bank but every time I put in my 2 cents it gets deleted.
posted by w0mbat at 11:26 AM on August 23, 2015 [19 favorites]

But it's colder!
posted by oceanjesse at 11:27 AM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

That water sommelier self-searches incessantly on twitter and elsewhere. He's shown up in conversations I've had twice now and always comes across as overly defensive. It's pretty funny. This is just water, for chrissake. There is no hidden complexity. You're not a refined aesthete looking down on the rest of us rubes, I assure you.
posted by naju at 11:27 AM on August 23, 2015

MeWater: Flagon it & move on
posted by Going To Maine at 11:28 AM on August 23, 2015 [21 favorites]

I get pretty depressed when I see someone with Fiji water. Not just the plastic bottle, or the carbon debt of of all those ships, but the relationship between it and the ruling junta.

As for Greenland water, it's melting into the oceans fast enough that showing up and contributing to that process with a harvesting operation is nothing by comparison, but the symbolism of it is still horrible.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:29 AM on August 23, 2015 [9 favorites]

Isn't it just amazing how these talented men can create these specific nourishing chemicals for us from familiar map words?
posted by oceanjesse at 11:29 AM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

You're not a refined aesthete looking down on the rest of us rubes

oO
posted by lalochezia at 11:29 AM on August 23, 2015

I'm waiting to see wooden bottles of water sold at whole foods. I know they already sell it in boxes...
posted by oceanjesse at 11:30 AM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

I do hope all that bottled purity is free of nasty toxins like dihydrogen monoxide.
posted by Dashy at 11:31 AM on August 23, 2015 [10 favorites]

Carting water around in bottles on a truck using petroleum fuel is insane. No other way to put it.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 11:32 AM on August 23, 2015 [18 favorites]

Whole Foods does sell "spa water" - which is just water and cucumber slices, I think - for $3.
posted by naju at 11:33 AM on August 23, 2015

A few years from now people will watch the Kimmy Schmidt ice gag and not even realize it was a joke at the time it was made. The business depicted probably started in earnest the next day.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:35 AM on August 23, 2015 [11 favorites]

See also: Penn & Teller's Bullshit! Bottled water survey
posted by filthy light thief at 11:37 AM on August 23, 2015 [7 favorites]

Park City Utah was getting some complaints about an off taste in their water supply, some years ago. Investigating one large cistern, city workers found a dead raccoon...

We sat down on the terrace of a chic restaurant, the host in a Edouard Manet like boatswains shirt seated us and asked, "Would you like some Perrier, some Evian, or some tap water?" I looked at my daughter, smiling and said, "Oooh I'll have the tap water!" My daughter smiled and said, "That sounds yummy mommy!" I said, "After all, y'all did get that raccoon out of the water system, Humm?"
posted by Oyéah at 11:38 AM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

“It’s like opening up a Mark Twain story, except without the racist parts”

…so, just like opening up a Mark Twain story, then?
posted by RogerB at 11:43 AM on August 23, 2015 [30 favorites]

A read this as artesian water is a thing.

The bottled stuff just proves that marketing works.
posted by three blind mice at 11:44 AM on August 23, 2015

There's a scene in Matinee where Robert Picardo's character assures John Goodman's character that the door of his bomb shelter is unbreakable... because the guy who sold it to him said so. Goodman's response is, "I'm in the wrong line of work."

That's how I feel when I read about fancy water.
posted by brundlefly at 11:46 AM on August 23, 2015 [6 favorites]

I buy bottled water, but only for use in my espresso machine. The bottled water has a lower dry residue, meaning that it doesn't clog up the machine as quickly as the London hard water (and no, a Brita filter doesn't help on that front), and also makes a better-tasting cup of coffee. AFAIK, it's collected somewhere in Great Britain.
posted by acb at 11:47 AM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Whole Foods recently sold three stalks of asparagus in 16 oz of water for $6 for a short while.

Yeah, but that water goes perfectly with your Whole Foods Single Pomegranate That Listened to NPR This Morning ($64.99).
posted by The Bellman at 11:50 AM on August 23, 2015 [8 favorites]

I'm going to mock up a bottle of Philae™ brand comet water. That way I can sneer at people with their glacier water because while maybe their water has not been peed in since the dawn of civilization, mine has never been exposed to terrestrial life at all.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:52 AM on August 23, 2015 [11 favorites]

We have hard, mineraly water in Peoria and people complain bitterly about the taste, and I'm like, "Shut up, jerks, if you slapped a label that said 'from a Swiss hot spring patronized by Charlemagne to cure his arthritis' you'd pay five fucking dollars a litre and talk about how delicious it is, but since it says Peoria and comes out of the tap for a fraction of a penny per gallon, you're all 'boo hoo, my healthy, safe water sucks' even though this is exactly what fancy European mineral water tastes like and so out of ignorance and snobbery you buy bottled water delivered by carbon-belching truck that is literally just bottled tap water wrapped in plastic. Buy a fucking Brita filter and STFU."

Um ... I have feelings.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:55 AM on August 23, 2015 [42 favorites]

Anyway I'd sell you artisinal water from Peoria but it's actually against the law to sell water out of the drainage cachement area for the river.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:58 AM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

Eyebrows McGee, are you telling me that bottled water will sell in Peoria?
posted by cardioid at 12:01 PM on August 23, 2015 [14 favorites]

Our water has so much lime here, but I still wouldn't buy the bottled stuff. We do filter it though, which helps a little.

As for dead raccoons, I will bet you one million American dollars that any "pure artisanal spring" gets its share of dead wildlife occasionally. Water treatment plants are amazing things. They work really well at making your water safe.
posted by emjaybee at 12:08 PM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is referenced in the Good article, but the Ray's and Stark Water Menu is a thing of wonders.
posted by jetlagaddict at 12:10 PM on August 23, 2015 [4 favorites]

A few years from now people will watch the Kimmy Schmidt ice gag and not even realize it was a joke at the time it was made. The business depicted probably started in earnest the next day.

It's okay it's already here

It's be fun to explain this to the grandkids along with other long vanished things like fish and the concept of going outside.
posted by The Whelk at 12:15 PM on August 23, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'm starting a kickstarter for a pill that turns gasoline into water.
posted by Bringer Tom at 12:22 PM on August 23, 2015

Bulletproof XCT oil

A strange way to spell "snake".
posted by Wolfdog at 12:23 PM on August 23, 2015 [13 favorites]

I'm still not done laughing at my city shutting down a whole reservoir because some homeless kid was caught pissing nearby (same reservoir is inhabited by swimming ducks and geese on a regular basis - guess who's gonna leave more urea in there...).
posted by idiopath at 12:29 PM on August 23, 2015 [5 favorites]

Presumably MeFi water would cost, y'know, $20. Same as in town.
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:32 PM on August 23, 2015 [8 favorites]

We're The Timmy Brothers and we make water.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:33 PM on August 23, 2015

We have hard, mineraly water in Peoria and people complain bitterly about the taste

I'm not about to complain about the taste of hard water, but I will complain about my hair, and how it looks as if I've stopped washing it if I don't do it twice.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:38 PM on August 23, 2015

Re: Berg, the "glacial water from Western Greenland"..... I spent some time in western Greenland, I've seen the glaciers, and I ain't drinking that.
posted by easily confused at 12:44 PM on August 23, 2015 [5 favorites]

I am involved, heavily, with a coalition whose purpose is to ban fracking in Florida. Because the petroleum happens to be underneath our aquifer, our talking-points include the facts that drilling and fracking will contribute to the depletion of, and possibly the pollution of our fresh water supply.

As a person who is involved in "environmental" issues, I should be appalled by the idea of single-serve water bottles.

I am spoiled, because I'm fortunate to live in a city that has close to the highest-rated tapwater in the country.

But about a three-hour drive west from here, in a county where oil drilling occurs, the tapwater was rated the worst in the country. The levels of benzene and other carcinogens are significantly higher than even the weak-sauce EPA recommendations. And the pro-drilling, pro-fracking state legislator for that district has either run unopposed, or only against a write-in candidate for several terms. So it's unlikely that they'll be getting much help from the government any time soon.

I don't blame anyone there for drinking bottled water, and I stock up on tapwater from home and supplement it with bottled water when necessary when I travel there.

There are legitimate reasons to drink bottled water rather than tap water in some areas. Like cancer.

Clean, potable, tasty tapwater is a privilege that not everyone has.
posted by Cookiebastard at 1:02 PM on August 23, 2015 [12 favorites]

I've...drunk water...you people wouldn't believe. From the hydrological apex of North America. All those...drops...tasted like [choke] tears...in...rain.


it was literally straight runoff from the glacier, cold and refreshing, from snow laid down before the industrial Revolution
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:04 PM on August 23, 2015 [4 favorites]

Every time I hear about ridiculously-priced glacier water I think of this clip from the Simpsons..
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:19 PM on August 23, 2015

Our tap water doesn't taste great but I just drink it. It's cheap, clean, guilt-free, and wets the parts of my body, inside and out, that need to get wet. Bottled water is a ripoff. More than likely, you're paying for some other place's tap water in a bottle.
posted by double block and bleed at 1:19 PM on August 23, 2015

I think I'll move back down south
Where the water tastes just like cherry wine
This Lake Michigan water
Tastes to me just like turpentine

(the above lyric is kind of a joke, Michigan's water is very nice and they do have lots of cherries)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:20 PM on August 23, 2015

I grew up drinking water from Lake Michigan. I miss it terribly.
posted by double block and bleed at 1:21 PM on August 23, 2015

Bottled water is a ripoff. More than likely, you're paying for some other place's tap water in a bottle.

It's worse than that. These days a lot of the cheaper brands use genetically-modified water. They aren't even required to list it on the label. If you want your kids drinking GMW then be my guest but don't come crying to me when they grow a toe out of the middle of their forehead (this actually happens).
posted by dephlogisticated at 1:27 PM on August 23, 2015 [21 favorites]

Countess Elena: "I'm not about to complain about the taste of hard water, but I will complain about my hair, and how it looks as if I've stopped washing it if I don't do it twice."

Yeah, everybody has a whole-house water softener -- it's a standard appliance here just like a furnace or a water heater. It feeds all your pipes but the kitchen cold tap and the outdoor tap. Pro-tip: If you like the taste of salty soft water, use the bathroom tap instead of the kitchen tap. But even with the whole-house softener, the hardness is hell on my dishes and rough on my clothes. (It agrees with my personal hair okay, but I know a lot of people have trouble with it.) There are like five water-softening companies within two miles of my house and for a small monthly fee they'll even deliver the pellets to your door and/or put them in the tank, which I see the appeal of because my six-weekly "haul three 55# sacks to the basement and lift them shoulder height to pour into the softener" is my least-favorite household chore. Plus then my mouth tastes like salt dust all afternoon.

My neighbor gets bottled water delivered for drinking and cooking because she thinks the hard water tastes "so bad." It's called "Fresh Mountain Green Spring!" or some shit like that, and it is LITERALLY the local tap water run through an industrial-sized Brita filter, the mountain being wholly imaginary. What makes it more eye-roll inducing is that she has a Ph.D. in chemistry.

The only time I get whiny about my local water is, sometimes in the summer there's ... I guess it's like an algae bloom? But I don't know if it's algae or something else? Anyway, something in the water they have to kill at the treatment plant, that the smell of really bothers me. There's always a notice when they do this, because half of people can smell it and it smells LIKE DEATH and half of people can't smell it at all, and everyone thinks the other half has gone mad.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:31 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

We have hard, mineraly water in Peoria and people complain bitterly about the taste

I might be more patient as an adult, but as a kid I found the water at my great aunt and uncle's house near Peoria some of the most revolting stuff I'd ever put in my mouth. And that was even when the town I lived in was on well water and we were running a water softener too (big cheers to the eventual arrival of Lake Michigan water in the western burbs).
posted by wotsac at 1:42 PM on August 23, 2015

The finest tap water I have ever tasted, utterly clear and pure and with the taste of crisp mountain air and so wonderfully cold right out of the tap I almost died from bliss was the tap water in Lofer, Austria in the coldest hotel I have ever stayed in during the winter months, because apparently Austrians think that late October is basically still summertime and make very startled faces whilst they are careful to hide their derision when you ask for a space heater, despite the fact that there are like 5 feet of snow on the ground and the runs and lifts are open.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:49 PM on August 23, 2015

This is where a little extra punctuation can make all the difference. Just point out to people that they're drinking "Arti's Anal Water".
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:57 PM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

MeFi Springs: "Tastes Like White Tears".
posted by MikeMc at 2:15 PM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

I make my own artisanal water, if you want to call it that. I go to a specific spring and fill up old two-liter pop bottles with some very fine water. It has no added chlorine or fluorine or flocculants. It percolates through sandstone strata that contains iron sulfides, so it has just a touch of sulfuric acid - and that's a good thing. It gives the water a refreshing, clean finish, excellent for quenching thirst, and much preferable to "sweet" spring water from limestone formations. It's free and folks around here swear by it. Sometimes, I have to wait in line.

I don't sell this water, and I will not say where the spring is. It is not disinfected and there is no guarantee it won't contain unfriendly microbes, but perhaps I am immune since it has never caused me a problem. City folks who drink nothing but disinfected water should be forewarned.
posted by tommyD at 2:51 PM on August 23, 2015

"I mix my own water at home. Two parts H, one part O. I don't trust anybody!"
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:59 PM on August 23, 2015 [4 favorites]

Eyebrows McGee: my six-weekly "haul three 55# sacks to the basement and lift them shoulder height to pour into the softener"

I'm hoping that's an autocorrect, otherwise I wonder just how damn hard is your water.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:06 PM on August 23, 2015

I drink bottled water. I am perfectly happy to consume the bottled tap water of some other municipality. Because I live where this happened. (see also that , and take a load of these weasels . ) I do not drink bottled water when I travel outside of this area. I feel bad about the plastic waste, but as long as my state is ran by morons, what are ya gonna do? Also they can't tell us if the pipes in our homes will ever be clean of the chemical, so as long as I live in this house - bottled it is. (but not snooty bottled water; cause that's just silly.
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 3:35 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm just going to leave this artisanal condensed fog here.
posted by cromagnon at 3:38 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

“It’s like opening up a Mark Twain story, except without the racist parts”

…so, just like opening up a Mark Twain story, then?

Yeah, and the cheeky suggestion that your marketing pap is better than Huck Finn is pretty fuckin' gnarly.
posted by grobstein at 3:39 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Johnny Wallflower: "my six-weekly "haul three 55# sacks to the basement and lift them shoulder height to pour into the softener"
I'm hoping that's an autocorrect"

hahahaha ... every six weeks. Sesquicemonthly?
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:06 PM on August 23, 2015

I live in a place where I can turn a valve, and delicious, clean water flows freely, at a low price. Sometimes I marvel at that fact. Clean, plentiful water = privilege.
posted by theora55 at 5:44 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I live in a place that won't lack for fresh water until billions elsewhere are rioting over the issue. Clean is an issue since that fresh water comes from the USA's toilet but cleaning crap out of already fresh water has always generally been a lot easier than desalinization. Of course this place also got overrun by a monster hurricane ten years ago so there's that.
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:37 PM on August 23, 2015

my six-weekly "haul ...

Since biweekly usually means once every two weeks, I think you're in the clear there, Eyebrows,

The only time I get whiny about my local water is, sometimes in the summer there's ... I guess it's like an algae bloom? But I don't know if it's algae or something else? Anyway, something in the water they have to kill at the treatment plant, that the smell of really bothers me. There's always a notice when they do this, because half of people can smell it and it smells LIKE DEATH and half of people can't smell it at all, and everyone thinks the other half has gone mad.

and I'd say your nose seems to know its business pretty well too, because BMAA, a toxin produced by blue-green algae, is looking more and more like a cause of ALS:

About five years ago, doctors at a New Hampshire hospital noticed a pattern in their ALS patients—many of them, like Gilmore, lived near water. Since then, researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center have identified several ALS hot spots in lake and coastal communities in New England, and they suspect that toxic blooms of blue-green algae—which are becoming more common worldwide—may play a role.

Now scientists are investigating whether breathing a neurotoxin produced by the algae may raise the risk of the disease. They have a long way to go, however: While the toxin does seem to kill nerve cells, no research, even in animals, has confirmed the link to ALS.

It's interesting the clusters of ALS are among people living around infested bodies of water rather than those drinking water from it, which might imply that your liver can protect you from it under normal circumstances.
posted by jamjam at 7:41 PM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

A friend of mine hiked the AT. He realized any clean water is good water. Yes, you can taste things. They're not all bad for you.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:52 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I honestly can't tell if the instances of "artisan" are supposed to be "artesian" or the other way around.
posted by supercres at 8:51 PM on August 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Tap water has trace amounts of chlorine, to kill the germs.

If you leave it out overnight (as fish owners often do to make it less caustic to aquarium life), the chlorine evaporates and permits the water to be colonised by various nasty organisms again.

This is why I drink only water straight from a municipal supply tap, and never water that has sat overnight in a bottle or pitcher.

Ha ha only deadly serious.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 10:59 PM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh, I should point out that I'm happy to boil standing water in a kettle so long as it's clear. It's a subtle point, but being British now it's one I'm duty-bound to make.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:00 PM on August 23, 2015

Also I guess I should have complete the Col. Ripper line by adding Islay Single-Malts to that. Don't worry, Speyside, I'll give you another chance next year!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:20 AM on August 24, 2015

One of the delicious little details in the film 'The Player' is that every time Tim Robbins's character orders a meal, he orders a different brand of bottled water by name.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:33 AM on August 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Since I was about 16 I've been able to drink beer and make water.
I've also been trying to drink water and make beer, but with no success.
posted by chavenet at 4:20 AM on August 24, 2015

Tap water has trace amounts of chlorine, to kill the germs.

Except right now in NYC, especially Brooklyn, where it's a bit more than trace and our normally delightful water temporarily tastes like drinking a swimming pool.
posted by rafaella gabriela sarsaparilla at 6:10 AM on August 24, 2015

I used to live in Santa Barbara, where the water is pumped from a lake through a mountain in an unlined tunnel, in an area where there's a lot of hot springs. It has a high sulpher and mineral content, and will run a water softener dry in about a week. Moving up to the bay area was glorious-I could drink water right from the tap! Our hair didn't look like crap!
posted by happyroach at 6:55 AM on August 24, 2015

Anyway, if you're going to add asparagus to NYC tap water you should probably also add some butter sauce, because it's already full of microscopic lobsters--and therefore not kosher (or vegan). Pretty sneaky, God!
posted by The Bellman at 7:46 AM on August 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

rafaella gabriela sarsaparilla: "where it's a bit more than trace and our normally delightful water temporarily tastes like drinking a swimming pool."

An awful lot of it evaporates off in five minutes (especially off the top where you can smell it); if you have chlorine-sensitive plants in your garden that you're watering with municipal tap water, gardening experts from the USDA extensions tell you you only need to let the water sit in a bucket (not watering can -- slows evaporation if the top is more closed) for five minutes before watering. If you get yourself a glass of water, set it down and go in the other room to straighten up for a couple minutes, and come back, the chloriney water will taste fine unless you have a very sensitive sense of smell/taste. (which you might! but for most people, letting it sit for five minutes gets rid of the worst of it.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:52 AM on August 24, 2015

Damn…I thought I was going to be the one to get rich quick off of bottled Greenland glacier-melt...
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 8:38 AM on August 24, 2015

It tastes like water without the hydrogen and oxygen parts.
posted by y2karl at 9:23 AM on August 24, 2015

Bulletproof XCT oil

A strange way to spell "snake".

It's basically overpriced MCT oil. Buy a 64 oz tub of coconut oil at Costco for cheaper and call it a day.
posted by theorique at 10:08 AM on August 24, 2015