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Comment by jonasdegendt | Hacker News Reader

Most bottled mineral water is just filtered tap water with some different minerals added to give it flavor.

This varies by market. In the US, they just bottle tap water. In Europe this is really unusual, bottled water uses their own wells with different requirements and regulations. For example a stable mineral concentration and taste is very important for mineral water, but of secondary concern for tap water. Also tap water might come from surface water (rivers etc) while mineral water doesn't.

In Poland, there's "mineral water" where it needs to fulfill those requirements, and "spring water" that is basically bottled tap water. The first one costs like 0,5$ for 1,5L , while second one can be bought for as low as 0,2$.

Germany has mineral water and table water. Table water is the bottled tap water.

Though where I live, even table water would be better than unfiltered tap water. Not because of health concerns (I actually had my tap water lab tested as the building is from the 60s), but because of limescale in the kettle and disgust on my tastebuds ;)

Does the preferences for the qualities bottled water in Germany have any intersection with the history of public springs emitting carbonated mineral water?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHvj0MJw7z4

I have no idea, but I also prefer uncarbonated water ;)

You mean if everyone else's preference for flat water is linked to their springs emitting flat water?

After the world seems to be in agreement that CocaCola and most lemonades are best served carbonated. But for water there's this weird schizm over carbonation.

Tom Scott did a video about bottled-water, tap-water and mineral-water regarding this - see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD79NZroV88

It's interesting because the correct answer is that each country/region has different expectations from bottled water, mineral water.

Tap water is vastly different depending on where it is sourced. In my experience, most countries have pretty bad tap water.

After a few rounds of filtration it's all going to be the same.

But if you carefully filter and re-mineralise it before bottling, you can turn it into more or less the same product anywhere.

Not really talking about bottling- in Scandinavia their tap water is better than most bottled water.

I still think about how good Vancouver tap water is compared to the stuff we get in London.

London tap water varies a lot in different parts of London. When I used to live in North-West London it was very hard (ie: full of minerals) so you'd constantly be cleaning the limescale gunk out of your shower, off your taps, etc. And I also remember it smelling noticeably "chlorinated" at times. Now I live in East London (E14) and it seems much softer - we get a bit of limescale but nothing like it was at my old place, and no pool-water smells.

But anyway, I think anywhere in London, so long as you run it through a filter (ie: Brita filter) and chill it, it tastes more or less as good as any bottled water.

Yeah I’ve never thought London water was bad, but Vancouver water tasted amazing.

I would say it varies pretty widely on a much smaller than country level, moreso by source. Water from an aquifer almost always tastes much better than water from a river.

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