"tap water" news and stories

• Argentina, a rising star in the global wine community, is still defining itself -- large commercial producers, or small, artisanal vintners?
• When takeout involves shipping in dry ice, you expect something fabulous. The "Cranky Consumer" compares the mail-order options.
• One entrepreneur is trying to make vodka the new Texas tea.
• Last year people planted recession gardens -- and made some rookie mistakes. This year will be totally different.
• Speaking of the recession, there's a trend toward ditching bottled water for tap. But it still needs to taste good.

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series for the caffeine-addicted.

Since brewed coffee is more than 90 percent water, it only makes sense to use the perfect H20 for the job, right?

But what is the "perfect" water for coffee? Are we talking about highfalutin fountains that'll bleed you dry, or straight-from-the creek agua with turtles still in it? Will a Brita filter suffice? Read more after the jump.

Photo: travelbex, Flickr.

There is a book that came out recently about our obsession with bottled water called Botllemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. In it, the author talks about our reliance on bottled water and how tap water is generally as pure or more pure than bottled water.

Americans are getting away from bottled water, but it isn't because of this new book. Apparently bottled water is just too expensive, and in an economic downturn it's one of those luxury items that gets cut. This report from CNN.com interviews several people who have switched to tap water as well as a few calculations of how much you can save by cutting out bottled water.

The report also briefly mentions the environmental aspect of this trend. Refusing to buy bottled water helps cut down on the plastic bottles, which we've been told for years is what we need to do. Are you cutting back or cutting out bottled water for economic reasons?

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?

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