Taste Test: Tasmanian Rain Bottled Water

by Sarah J. Gim, Posted Aug 29th 2007 @ 9:45PM

I always feel weird about "taste testing" bottled waters because to me, all water tastes like...water. Sure there are subtle variations that are borne out of where the water originates, if it was bottled at the source, and even the type of packaging it's in, but to me, these are normally undetectable.

What I'm trying to say is you should most definitely take my "review" here with a trace amount of sodium.

I wasn't sure how to feel about Tasmanian Rain because it's touted as bottled rain water. Where I live, if you drink rain water, you'll probably erode the lining of your intestines (I live in Los Angeles). However, the Tasmanian Rain water is collected in Tasmania Australia, "The Edge of the World," where the air is the purest in world. Thats' quite a claim, but the promise is that the air has been scientifically proven to be the purest in the world because it crosses three oceans by the winds of the Antarctic and never touches the ground before it's collected.

Hey, if the Tasmanian Devil has that much energy, the water there must be good!

Tasmanian Rain comes in glass bottles that are shaped like wine bottles, already putting it into a luxury category simply by perception. Something that feels heavy and looks line a wine bottle is going to taste expensive, right? I am such a sucker for marketing, but I won't get into the whole discussion about the industry of bottled water as crafty marketing here.

I chilled one bottle and tried the first one at room temperature. This water is definitely a fancy "serving" water, not an "on-the-go" convenience bottled water, since drinking straight from a 750 mL glass bottle seems strange. At the risk of sounding like a heathen, as well as possibly chipping my two front teeth, I drank straight from the bottle. My friends, Tasmanian Rain water straight from that gorgeously labeled glass bottle tastes like...

...water.

Of course I eventually drank the whole bottle. No sense in letting it go to waste!

Next up was the chilled Tasmanian Rain. Because it was chilled, for some reason I felt compelled to pour it into a wine glass. I kid you not, I poured bottle water into a wine glass. Don't worry, though, I didn't swirl the glass. I did however, smell the water to see if there might have been some crisp oceanic scent from being carried across three oceans. It smelled like, you guessed it, nothing. I guess that's a good sign. I probably should have done the sniff test with the room temperature water as well, but, and I'm only guessing here, I bet it smells the same.

I drank the water, and it tasted crisp, refreshing, and very clean, but nothing overly impressed me. Then again, I was drinking water that had chilled in the refrigerator on a hot summer day, and perhaps I was expecting to be hit with some of that Antarctic wind.

I appreciate the fact that the water comes from the purest of air on the other side of the world, but I doubt I'd pay a premium over other bottled waters for Tasmanian Rain. All things equal though, I definitely don't mind drinking it.

Filed Under: Drink Recipes, New Products
Tags: australia, bottled water, tasmania, tasmanian rain, TasmanianRain, water

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Reader comments (Page 2 of 2)

9-04-2007 @3:34AM enemyofsocialdistortion said... i mean i dont believe what the label says, they are all lying to silly consumers.
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9-04-2007 @11:07AM Diana B. said... Back in the days of the old Wild West, a patent medicine salesman was hawking bottles of Dr. Brain's HI-IQ Elixir in a small town.

"Step right this way, folks," he announced. "Drink one bottle of this magic tonic and you'll be smarter instantly. Only $10 and you'll become an instant genius."

So one guy plunked down his $10, took a swig, and hollered, "Hey, this stuff's only water!"

The pitchman replied, "See, it's working perfectly. You're getting smarter already."
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