I Went to a Water Tasting; Here’s How It Changed the Way I Think About Life’s Most Ordinary Drink

All water is not the same, it turns out. (Photo: Europa Press via AP)

Pour yourself a glass of water. Take small sips and let it warm on your palate. Think more deeply about your everyday water than you ever have before: What’s the texture? Are there notes of swimming pool? Maybe even… Tums?

I recently attended a water tasting hosted by Camper English, a spirits writer who became fascinated by water while studying its role in brewing and distilling. The tasting took place in an intimate, book-lined room within the Mechanics’ Institute building in downtown San Francisco, the kind of lovely old office building that makes you think of Dashiell Hammett and the noir atmosphere of “The Maltese Falcon.”

When I arrived, more than a dozen waters had already been poured into plastic cups, which surprised me; I expected plastic would pollute the water ahead of the tasting. On the table sat a TDS (total dissolved solids) meter, which looked a bit like a bulky thermometer. If you wanted to understand water seriously, this was, apparently, where you began.

I quickly realized our host was one of those rare people who moves through the world like an almanac, collecting knowledge that may seem trivial to some, but to those who care is deeply valuable. English has spent years investigating the overlooked corners of drinks culture: niche spirits, ice, water and cocktails. He does it with a rare intellectual curiosity, pursuing knowledge not for profit but out of genuine interest. He brought up the library in the building several times, almost like an undercover cheerleader for it.

Over the course of the evening, a handful of strangers and I sat in a tiny office tasting 19 different waters: still and sparkling, artesian and well water, local bottles and imports from far away. We tasted Evian, a classic mineral water that’s the real deal — dare I say, holy grail. We tasted Topo Chico, which English recommended as one of the best sparkling waters for cocktails (though he noted the brand has been reworking wells in Mexico, leading to supply shortages). We tasted FIJI Water, which may not win sustainability awards but stands out for its unusually high level of silica.

We tasted Vichy Catalan, the No. 1 water in Spain, which has a distinctly salt-and-limestone character, a profile that, it turns out, works beautifully in a country where the climate is hot and the cuisine leans heavily toward seafood and salty dishes. Have you ever thought about that — a certain type of water being popular in a certain climate? It had never crossed my mind.

English keeps an archive of descriptions from tasters, and they range from basic to poetic to completely unhinged. One person described Saratoga still water as “like licking my office wall.” Another described Three Bays as “the olive oil of water” and also “pasta water.” Borjomi earned notes such as “liquid drywall,” “like you just ate an oyster” and even “Ajax cleanser.” The fact that English keeps all these notes feels important somehow; it’s a reminder of how many angles even something as mundane as water can be experienced from.

Water is the most ordinary drink we have, yet we spend more time debating the bottle, whether it’s a Stanley or an Owala — than we do thinking about what’s in it. Maybe it’s time we start paying attention to the water itself. The real point isn’t that water is secretly complicated. It’s that paying attention to the texture, weight and minerality of something we drink every day reveals that even the most ordinary things can be surprisingly interesting.