Is it purely coincidence that Evian is ‘naive’ backwards?
The tap water where I live is pretty disgusting to taste, and not entirely clear when it comes out of the tap. I boil it and cool it before I use it if I run out of bottled water if I’m going to drink any quantity of it and I use it in tea, coffee, etc.
But is bottled water a rip off? Is it all spring / mineral water? Are we being conned into buying bottled tap water or could they actually be adding chemicals to make it taste better?

We have a supply of bottled water in the house in case of emergencys, but we use tap water and a brita filter.

The water where I live has alot of lime in it so it can tend to be cloudy, but thats natural.

if the bottle has 'mineral water' on it then it means its basically tap water, however if it has 'spring water' on it then it means it's actually bottled at a real spring - so should reflect that in terms of quality (if it does or not is another discussion).

Living in Scotland, the water that comse out of my taps is pretty good :) Sometimes, with bottled water, I feel it can taste a bit chloriney, if ya know what I mean.

I drink tap water out here without filtering it - it tastes fine to me. I also have bottled water on the bedside table, for when I wake up hungover with 'the raging thirst'.

[QUOTE]justbecause spouted:
[B]Is it purely coincidence that Evian is ‘naive’ backwards?

I posted this on another thread similar to this - The guy in the BP garage told me that he had seen some programme and that someone at Evian had admitted to it being a sly dig at the public who are daft enough to believe all the stuff about mineral water.
I don't know how true this is though - he may have just been very bored after coming towards the end of a 12 hour night shift or something - who knows.

alpha_centauri spouted:
if the bottle has 'mineral water' on it then it means its basically tap water, however if it has 'spring water' on it then it means it's actually bottled at a real spring - so should reflect that in terms of quality

There was a thread like this previously where I spouted about mineral waters. First off, mineral water is not tap water. It's supposed to be the best water bottled from natural springs or pumped via boreholes.

It should come from a protected source i.e no animals grazing, no farming etc. It's not allowed to be changed in anyway except for removing sand, grit and certain minerals such as manganese which precipitates out as black specs eventually.

Spring water isn't from a protected source and it can be a mix of water from different springs. It's seen as a lower quality water.

I know this as I worked for the company that bottles mineral water for all the major UK supermarkets (you know the ones).

It's a scam. The water isn't from a protected source. The hill where the springs and boreholes are, is covered in sheep. The boreholes are open to the elements. When it rains all that lovely sheep shit gets washed into the water giving it a lovely microflora of E.coli, Cryptosporidium etc etc. However, it's filtered in the factory through 0.2 micron filters which remove all the nasties. This also removes the natural (or "good") bacteria which is not allowed if the water is to be called Natural Mineral water.

Also, each supermarket thinks that their water comes from a seperate source from the others. This is true 'til it gets to the factory and is mixed up in big tanks.

So, what you're buying is nothing special. And I know of other independent mineral water companies who use the same tricks. Personally I'd buy the cheaper water which has been filtered, distilled and UV treated. I definitely would not drink natural mineral water.

justbecause spouted:
Is it purely coincidence that Evian is ‘naive’ backwards?


nope, this is not a coincidence at all, it is just the french once again doing what it is they do so well

taking the piss and expecting to profit from it

fireboy spouted:
taking the piss and expecting to profit from it

please tell me that isn't what evian actually is?
Oh My God!

on a recent trip the the Evian main bottling facilltity, i took this picture of one of the filling stations....

I was joking. I hope you are!

My home is in the mountains and the water there tastes nummy..but i go to college in a city and the water tastes metallic..so i drink bottled water...but i also find that some bottled water tastes funny..anyway...i love water:)

Ice Valley Still Mineral water tastes nice.
So does Brecon Carreg and its cheap too.

yeah bottled water is a complete rip. most producers operate on a 2000% profit margin. which sucks.

But surely the point of any bottled drink is how it tastes. Bottled water tastes no different to ordinary filtered water so what is the point?

There's a water bottling plant in a nearby town. The bottles have all this romantic crap about rolling hills and all that. The place is actually between the cop shop and some traffic lights.

They most certainly don't all taste the same.

Have you never tried Badoit? Well tasty. But I agree with the general 'rip off' thing

I went to a restaurant a while back that had a seperate water menu. How pretentious is that?

Monacella spouted:
Ice Valley Still Mineral water tastes nice.
So does Brecon Carreg and its cheap too.

AND Ice Valley is from Huddersfield.......I think.

/me also lives in scotland - and the tap water here is nice - though it back home than it is in edinburgh - back home it is granite filtered water off the cairngorms :) and it is free :):)