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Aquafina: Tap water all along

I'm so glad I'm on a mountain pure well.

500 feet deep, 15 gallons per minute.

No filtering needed.

Ice cold year round and tastes better than any of the bottled waters I've
tasted.

At the office, the tap water can run for 15 minutes and it's still luke warm and tastes terrible with all the chemicals they're putting into it.

You wouldn't drink that stuff if you saw the huge chemical canisters at the
water treatment facility.

It may be within acceptable tolerances for the public officials, but I don't
drink it.
 
iBlue said:
Now some tap water tastes like hell, you could "pepsi challenge" that stuff any old day of the week. Other times I couldn't tell my tap water from that overpriced bottled stuff.
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Yup... I'd drink the stuff from my mother's tap over most bottled water. The stuff in my tap? Hmm... I'll drink it occasionally and I'll cook with it. But I use bottled water in my kettle, coffee machine and iron just to stop them going all lime-scaley :rolleyes:
 
Applespider said:
Yup... I'd drink the stuff from my mother's tap over most bottled water. The stuff in my tap? Hmm... I'll drink it occasionally and I'll cook with it. But I use bottled water in my kettle, coffee machine and iron just to stop them going all lime-scaley :rolleyes:
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You ain't kiddin'.

When we eventually BUY here and move out of the rented flat, I want to invest in a water filter/purifier/softener thingy. It really does do some awful things to kettles and the glass shower n stuff. Tastes alright though.
 
Am I the only one that finds it a bit tasteless that - in these days where we're supposed to be a bit more conscious of such things - people still buy water which is packaged in plastic bottles and often flown in from another country when perfectly good water is available from a tap (depending on where you live)?! :confused:
 
I tend to drink water out of the tap, but if I do buy a bottle I go for the British brands like Buxton Spring. Buying water that's been shipped half way across Europe just doesn't seem right to me.
 
FleurDuMal said:
Am I the only one that finds it a bit tasteless that - in these days where we're supposed to be a bit more conscious of such things - people still buy water which is packaged in plastic bottles and often flown in from another country when perfectly good water is available from a tap (depending on where you live)?! :confused:
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No... I do recycle my plastic bottles and I look on it as having to replace my kettle/iron less often (the current ones are 10 years old) and fill up land-fill sites with those. I also happen to know that the water which I use comes from Scotland and is backhauled to London in a trailer that otherwise would make the trip back from Scotland empty which makes me feel a little more green.

I wouldn't buy the Fiji mineral water since I don't think it tastes sufficiently good to have flown halfway around the globe and justify all those carbon miles.
 
I personally find bottled water to be a waste of money and it doesn't even taste that good to me.

Then again, this is coming from a man (myself of course) who drinks directly from streams and rivers on a regular basis, so I'm probably not a typical case. :D
 
I'd suggest keeping a case of bottled water (or several jugs or a sealed drum) at least of water in the house. You never know when you might need it it a pipe were to burst or some other issue affected the drinking supply (flooding will sometimes overwhelm the commission plants). Unless it's a sealed drum, you should replace the water every six months or so - depending on how much you keep stored, you might be using it for a few weeks.

Otherwise, I don't see much benefit to bottled water if you aren't in a developing country (you don't drink the water in India).
 
kwajo.com said:
Then again, this is coming from a man (myself of course) who drinks directly from streams and rivers on a regular basis, so I'm probably not a typical case. :D
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That is a really bad idea because of bacteria, animals urinating and defecting in the water, and pollution.
 
Remember that both Dasani and Aquafina come from public water sources but are purified in a 7-step process, including reverse osmosis. I do not understand the big deal about PepsiCo bottling purified public water, this has been public knowledge for years! Dasani and Aquafina contain no Arsenic (at least in the States), but Fiji and other fancy waters have a reasonable amount of Arsenic and other dangerous chemicals in them (in safe quantities or not -Some studies found Fiji to have unsafe amounts). Who cares where the water came from (in this case Aquafina comes from a perfectly good local public water supply), everyone should pay more attention to what is in the water after it has been bottled! :eek: I'd rather drink Aquafina or Dasani without any Arsenic or carcinogens that come from a local water supply, rather than some fancy spring water with a bunch of "natural" chemicals that has to be shipped half-way around the world.

I live in a highly residential area, but there is no public water available. My tap water comes from a well and then softened. The tap water tastes so terrible I ONLY drink bottled water. I usually drink Ice Mountain as I find it doesn't have the gritty taste of other waters, which is bottled by Nestle here in Michigan. Even if I had city water, I'd rather take my chances with bottled water than the chlorine in city water.
 
I've been called a water snob on more than 10 occasions. For any protein shake I use arrowhead because in theory it's not bad cold and I drink a ton of those a day so it's just easier. However, straight water is typically room temp for me so that is when you can certainly taste the difference.

I drink about 3l of smart water a day. When Costco started selling it by the case I was happy as hell. If I am not drinking Smart Water I drink Fiji, Voss, or Esker. I'll drink Ethos or whatever it is from Starbucks from time to time. If I cannot get to costco and smart water isn't around Fiji is my second choice. Voss is more expensive than any of those but harder to get to in the regular supermarkets. Voss by the way annoyed me when they f'ed up the design of their label with that silly distinction between flat and sparkling. If you're too stupid to see the black sticker over the cap that said sparkling then you shouldn't be drinking voss!!!

Ok rant over about the label.

Main reason for my consumption of Smart Water is the electrolytes. I don't like the calories and sugar in gatorade but I like the effects of the electrolytes so smart water is a saving grace. Fiji, from what a doctor once told me, has something in it that is supposed to be great for your hair.

In the end, when it comes to water paying $1.00 a bottle in the store or even $1.50 a bottle isn't a big deal to me. I need water to live...I can live without the 2 double shots and 2 iced coffees I drink, but I refuse to live without good water.
 
Not only is this old news, but it also doesn't apply to just Aquafina. Almost every bottled water out there comes from the tap. Some of them come from the same source and are then transported, and some use local sources to wherever the water is distributed. There's actually nothing wrong with this - tap water in the U.S. is extremely well purified. The main problem is actually the plastic that the water comes in - landfills are choking on empty water bottles that people just as easily could've gotten from the tap.
 
Hummer said:
I've always known this... I read my bottles.

I've always been a huge fan of Voss though. Artesian water from Norway where you can literally taste the difference.
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Betcha can't taste the difference when all that fancy bottling's removed. I wish I could find the source, but at one point there was a blinded taste taste between several municipal water sources and high-end bottled water. Tap water won.

I've tasted decanted, distilled water we purified in my undergraduate chemistry lab years ago. Doesn't taste any better than the tap, really. As long as it's cold, it's universally refreshing.
 
Only a moron would think Dasani or Aquafina are anything but treated tap water. I never realized the source was a mystery.

I guess people are getting "dumber" :( Perhaps its all the chemicals in the plastic LOL.
 
I will continue to buy bottled water, not because it is 'special' in any way, but because for $4 per 24-pack, I'm too lazy to bottle it myself from my own faucet.
 
I don't understand all of this bottled water ****. On one side, there's all the people who are whiny and bitchy and only drink their specific brand of water, won't drink tap water, etc. On the other side, there's the people who are like "OMG ITZ A SCAM STOP WASTING PLASTIC".

Here's what I think: Water is water. I don't give a damn if it comes from a bottle or from a tap. The reason I buy bottled water is for convenience. It's much easier to just get a case of water, throw it in the fridge, and every day when I'm going to work I grab a bottle. If I'm at home, I drink tap water.

Bottled water isn't a "scam". People like the convenience of it.
 
Counterfit said:
Poland Spring is still my favorite. (and I don't mean the cheap gin)

Even if it is owned by Nestle.

I once tried a super-duper-uber reverse-osmosis filtered water that cost twice as much as Evian. Tasted the same though. Good thing it was a free sample. :D
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I also like Poland Spring. But,even it no longer comes from a single source. They have multiple sources, but all still in Maine. Their original source, by itself, could simply not the demand, which soared starting in the 90's.

As far as Nestle owning the company, well, that's simply the way the ball bounces in our merger-happy nation. Poland Spring was owned by Perrier for awhile, and another big corporate outfit after that. (name eludes me at the moment)

Lucky for me, I live in the Boston area, and we are blessed with damn good tap water. I drink some Poland spring on the job. (The plant's drinking water tastes like it has something in it that shouldn't be there. In fact, it tastes like,,well, old pipes. ) I save some bottles, fill them with tap water, and keep them in my fridge. Chilled water on demand, I say.
 
I only drink mountain spring water and stay away from Dasani, Aquafina, or anything that says "purified", "filtered", "distilled", etc.

For taste I prefer SmartWater, though I don't think it is any healthier than mountain spring water.
 
mac-er said:
That is a really bad idea because of bacteria, animals urinating and defecting in the water, and pollution.
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It works out just fine, I do it enough that my body is used to handling the stuff. I'm still alive, so it must be good for me. :p

I should also mention that I am a watercourse morphologist, and therefore I always know all the possible dangers contained within the watersheds of the streams that I drink directly from. So it is more of a controlled risk than I initially made it sound.
 
All of your posting for tap water... haven't you been in some cities where the tap water just wasn't.... drinkable? Sure physically it was, but it wasn't good. When I lived in Livermore, CA... the water sometimes had a slight brownish hue and didn't taste too well. No, wasn't the pipes, experienced it at home and friends houses with unfiltered tap. :p
 
I just moved to a brand new house in a brand new neighborhood, and for some reason I find the tap water tastes funny (maybe new pipes still or something). Otherwise, I've never had a problem with the tap water in most places here in Ottawa (e.g. public drinking fountains). I don't get these ads for bottled water that try to scare you by saying "Oooh, if you drink tap water, it's the same water that your toilet uses to flush!" Um, ok.

I buy bottled water purely for the convenience. I take one to work every day and sip at my desk. When it's empty, I bring it to the water fountain and refill it as many times as needed. Yes, I can taste the difference between the chlorinated tap water and the original bottled water, but it has never bothered me. When I leave the office to go home, I refill the bottle once again and bring it with me to the car and anywhere else I might be going that evening.

What I can't stand, is how tap water tastes after sitting in the bottle overnight (or bottled water, from any source, after being in a hot car all day). I think leachates come out from the plastic bottle, or maybe the chlorine encourages some reaction, or something, but it's pretty gross.

What I do like about Aquafina is that the bottles are thick, sturdy plastic and good for a couple of reuses in the above manner. I've noticed some of the other brands I've had (including some grocery chain house brands) are starting to cheap out by using thinner and thinner plastic in the bottles. But generally speaking I buy my bottled water based on price alone, not taste, origin, or mineral content.

(Incidentally, now that I'm paying my own water bills in my new place, I realize that bottled water is literally thousands of times more expensive...!)
 
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