Drinking bottled water isn’t new. In fact it was common seeing either a Sparkletts or an Arrowhead water cooler in many homes in the mid 1950’s. The water man would make weekly deliveries and hoist those hefty glass containers filled to the brim with water onto the coolers and retrieve the empties. This was about as portable as it got for decades. Then, beginning in the 1980’s, “personal” bottled water, which a person carried with them, became very trendy. Propelled by savvy marketing, Perrier, Dasani, Evian, and more than 700 other brands of bottled water have since become mainstream (pun intended).

Taste

First of all, why would a person want to pay as much as $3.50 for a bottle of water when it comes right from the tap for pennies or even less? While there is a lot of controversy about the efficacy of water testing, we’ll get to that later on. In the meantime, let’s focus on the taste of drinking water. I mean who wouldn’t want the taste of fresh water from a clean, clear mountain stream?

Well, that is what’s been long marketed as the taste you can expect from bottled water. Admittedly, ordinary tap water does have taste differences. Some water even has an odor depending if chlorine or some other disinfecting agent is used. If you travel across the country you’ll probably notice it. None of it can be described as tasting “bad” but there are different water “tastes.” So, early on the key selling point of bottled water was its “fresh, mountain stream quality.” Or, its “natural spring” taste. So, if taste is a criteria then bottled water may have an advantage over some tap water.