I don’t mean to brag, but I do drink water sometimes. I mostly drink it from a tap in a glass or a ridiculous pink tumbler, but I do drink it sometimes! Other times—and again, I am not trying to make anyone jealous—I forget my absurd drinking vessel and I have to buy bottled water.
That’s where my bragging rights end. I am a fairly hydrated person whose brain is rotted by the internet and the times and the motherhood of it all, so when I am standing in front of a wall of bottled waters, all of which are packaged like the way typing in all lowercase letters feels, all judgment and best practices go out the window and I’m a sucker for whatever…looks the most hydrating?? Oy.
This is to tell you that bottled waters were the perfect taste test for the Serious Eats team to tackle. There are too many options, they all promise far too much, and we are smart, mean, and skeptical, especially when you tell us we’ve got a weird task ahead. So the SE team pulled together eight brands of bottled water that you’re likely to find in your local supermarket and methodically, empirically, scientifically! tasted its way through them all in a quest to identify the very best. And! we! loved! every! minute! of! doing! it! A lot of bathroom breaks, though.
The Contenders
- Fiji
- Dasani
- Voss
- Icelandic
- Poland Spring
- Aquafina
- Smartwater
- Evian
The Criteria
Listen—no one here is a water somm. We were just a group of silly, goofy food nerds fresh off a creamy peanut butter taste test looking to create more content you’d enjoy reading and find useful. We still are, to be clear. With that in mind, here’s what we came up with: Good bottled water should not taste like…much. It’s allowed a tinge of minerality, a hit of glacial energy, and literally nothing else. If you smell something before you drink it—that’s bad bottled water. If you taste something amidst drinking it, that’s mid bottled water. And if you taste something after it? Oh my god, that’s disgusting bottled water.
You are allowed to feel things while drinking bottled water, and those feelings correlate directly to the water’s quality (again, in this group of non-water-somms opinions). Did you gulp and find yourself in Fiji? Great! (We gulped Fiji and found ourselves in a nearly retired dentists’ waiting room, but more on that in a sec.) Did you chug and think “I don’t know where I am, but I am mouth-down in a street puddle?” Not as great! If it’s helpful, the whole group ranked that famous old NYC tap water as their second favorite in the whole bunch for its clean taste, lack of smell, and general easy-to-chug vibes. (I obviously could not include it in this ranking of bottled waters, though.)
We (1) let all samples come to room temperature before tasting them, (2) poured each one into identical paper cups, and (3) required our testers to smell everything before tasting. We then asked them to rank just on smell and taste, but to also consider minerality, as each person’s tolerance for and opinion on minerality would sway their rankings. This sub-scoring “minerality scale” was not to assess good versus bad, but to assess the degree to which each taster did or did not detect a mineral flavor in the water. Daniel prefaced the test by explaining: “You could, in theory, rate a water as having a four in minerality, meaning a discernible mineral flavor, but a one in taste, which might indicate that you, personally, don’t like waters with a mineral flavor.” I then factored in each person’s comments on minerality in the smell and taste categories to enforce the below rankings.
TL;DR: Our findings from this taste test are that…You should feel like you’re doing something good for yourself when you drink water (lol lol lol). If the opposite occurs, pick another bottle? See a physician? I don’t know, I have to prep for a chicken broth taste test.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
The Rankings
Icelandic, 3/5
I came here prepared to write a whole helpful and clever thing about how Icelandic water was the loveliest, most neutral offering of the bunch and then I revisited the tasting notes. Daniel Gritzer wrote in his—and I quote—“I have no complaints.” I, in turn, have nothing left to give you. Simply huge, if true.
Dasani, 2.38/5
Given that the collective internet has made hating Dasani an entire personality, I was so pleased to see it come in second place. Each one of our testers remarked positively on its minerality (“slight,” “pleasant,” etc.), which you will not see again on this list. Genevieve and Yasmine both wrote they’d voluntarily reach for a bottle of this, and that they’d be happy to have purchased it. I recused myself from this tasting as its keeper, but as a person who used to spend too much time in Florida, I’d know the inoffensive, not-cold-enough flatness of a Dasani anywhere and second this ranking.
Smartwater, 2.25/5
Again, nothing bad here, which is a huge win. Megan noted the lack of aftertaste (again, a positive!). Megan had lots of funny things to say about all subsequent waters’ aftertastes. The only thing that knocked Smartwater into third was Genevieve’s note about a very distinct distillation flavor. “It’s not harsh,” she wrote, “but it tastes really distilled.”
Poland Spring, 2.13/5
Again again, notes from the group on inoffensiveness, thirst quench-iness, and lovely-and-fine neutrality. Yasmine tanked this one, writing “It just tastes like water that’s been sitting out for a while.” In its defense…it had been. But I certainly can’t speak to what all happened to that springy stuff before they bottled it. Anyway, Poland Spring is solid and probably best enjoyed cold.
Aquafina, 2.13/5
Despite other people’s notes on a plastic-tinged smell, Daniel wrote: “I like this one just fine.” This from a man who joked the other day on Slack that we should start a YouTube show called Old Man Gritz Hates Everything. I worry! He may be chronically dehydrated except for the day we did this test??
Evian, 2.13/5
To be fair, everyone went into this talking about how much they dislike Evian. They then proceeded to unknowingly trash Evian.
Fiji, 1.88/5
Right off the bat, Genevieve clocked this as “Evian-esque,” which you’ll know is a sick burn if you have been reading since one paragraph ago.
Voss, 1.85/5
Not just a distinct papery taste here, but an aggressive smell as well. Things were said both in jest and in seriousness that were not fit to print, which feels both completely dramatic for such an undertaking and also so perfectly my coworkers!
Our Tasting Methodology
All taste tests are conducted completely hidden and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample 1 first, while taster B will taste sample 6 first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill out tasting sheets ranking the samples for various criteria that vary from sample to sample. All data is tabulated and results are calculated with no editorial input in order to give us the most impartial representation of actual results possible.
