L.A. and B.C. tie for tastiest tap water title

by Ellen Slattery, Posted Feb 26th 2008 @ 4:00PM

Yesterday, Marisa told you about the 2008 Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting this past week (what - you didn't attend?), Los Angeles and Clearbrook, British Columbia beat out 120 other entries, including ones from Macedonia and the Philippines, for the title.

Here's a closer look at the competition: the 10 judges based their selections on five criteria: taste, smell, texture, aftertaste, and clarity. They downed water from three categories: municipal, bottled, and the newest, purified.

In case you were wondering, the bottled water winner was Tumai Water from Martinsburg, West Virginia, the purified water winner was from Federalsburg, Maryland, and the carbonated bottled water winner flowed all the way from Emsdetten, Deutschland.

All of this begs the question: if you're tasting water, is it necessary to cleanse your palette between sips?

And we're wondering: how's your tap water?

Do you drink your water straight from the tap?
Yes. It's no L.A. water, but it'll do	196 (49.2%)
No way, I send it through a filter first	139 (34.9%)
No, I prefer bottled/carbonated/flavored/froofy	49 (12.3%)
I'm not a big water drinker	14 (3.5%)

Source

Filed Under: Newspapers, Drink Recipes, Tastings
Tags: america, BC, Berkeley Springs, BerkeleySprings, bottled, H2O, L.A., tap water, TapWater, water

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-26-2008 @4:36PM Julie said... It is amazing how different all those waters can taste, some of them are really nasty. I have always wondered is truly good water suppose to be tasteless? Or is it really all just a matter of taste lol
http://www.noshtalgia.blogspot.com/
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2-26-2008 @6:38PM rainey Smith said... I'm in LA where I'm pretty casual about drinking tap water. I run some through a Brita filter and keep it cold in the fridge for just drinking. But I cook and make coffee & tea with the tap water all the time.

I hafta say I agree with the findings that we have tasty water.
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2-26-2008 @6:37PM Rick Dobbs said... I would have liked to see some of the municipal waters blindly mixed in to the bottled water competition to see where those rank.
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2-27-2008 @1:00PM beanspants said... Ha! you actually linked to their site: I don't feel like searching enough to find the '08 participants, but here's the 2007 competitors:

1. Atlantic City, NJ
2. Berkeley County PSD, WV
3. Berkeley Springs, WV
4. Campbell River, BC, Canada
5. Clarksburg, WV
6. Clearbrook, BC, Canada
7. Daytona Beach, FL
8. Desert Hot Springs, CA
9. District of Elkford, BC, Canada
10. Eldorado Springs, CO
11. Frederick, MD
12. Harundale WTP, MD
13. Huntington Beach, CA
14. Independence, MO
15. Kent, OH
16. Malartic, PQ, Canada
17. Martinsburg, WV
18. MHOG Water Treatment Plant, Howell, MI
19. Oak Creek, WI
20. Prince George, BC, Canada
21. Rose Haven WTP, MD
22. Sandusky, OH
23. Severndale WTP, MD
24. Southern Outer Banks, NC
25. Stewart, BC, Canada
26. Village of Dysart, Sask, Canada
27. Village of Montpelier, OH
28. Village of Montrose, BC, Canada
29. Washington Aqueduct, Washington, DC

So the 2008 winner is represented by the water from the tap in Huntington Beach, CA. They came in 5th in 2007, so that water must have worked hard in 2008 to get to the top!

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3-05-2008 @10:15AM toxic said... Going to have to try the BC water.
I recall some discussion, on the same day, about the worst tap water. What are those communities? Anyone?
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