We arrived, we obsessed, we sampled and tasted and discussed and ate some of those lovely flat Spanish almonds from WholeFoods, and we scribbled furiously.
Our tasting crew included some of the sharpest critics I know. Hey – there’s nothing wrong with having high standards. But they took no prisoners as they sampled the goods. They made a couple of suggestions for improving the methodology, including a four-part fizziness metric (bubble size, quantity, longevity and relative sharp/softness). These will be taken under advisement for future regimens.
And then came the tabulation. Man, do I dread tabulation. And now the results are in:
Trader Joe’s Sparkling Mineral Water wins!
Comments from our illustrious panel for Trader Joe’s included:
- Nothing special.
- Refreshing, thirst-quenching.
- [this space intentionally left blank]
- Tiny happy bubbles.
- Lots of sting/fizz, not enough sparkle. Fuller taste than previous 2.
It might not sound like a strong showing, but we had some pretty polarized reactions to many of the others. Assorted comments include:
- Fizz all bite and no sparkle.
- Almost industrial.
- To be reevaluated.
- Carbonated salt water.
- Needed an almond to cleanse palate.
- Dirty, metallic.
- omg bad.
Well kids, that was fun.
| Water | P | E | K | Spouse | Self | Avg Total |
| Gerolsteiner | 8 | 12 | 13 | 8 | 10 | 10.2 |
| Archer Farm: Target | 15 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 15 | 12 |
| Poland Spring | 14 | 9 | 12 | 10 | 15 | 12 |
| Whole Foods Sparkling Mineral Water | 11 | 8 | 13 | 5 | 9 | 9.2 |
| Trader Joe’s Sparkling Mineral Water | 15 | 9.5 | 12 | 15 | 16 | 13.5 |
| San Pellegrino | 11 | 12 | 16 | 10 | 15 | 12.8 |
| Perrier | 12 | 8 | 7 | 10 | 12 | 9.8 |
| Club Soda: Safeway | 12 | 12 | 13 | 11 | 16 | 12.8 |
| World Market Sparkling Mineral Water | 8 | 8 | 9 | 13 | 17 | 11 |
| Apollinaris | 6 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 6.8 |
One surprise was that Safeway brand Club Soda tied for 2nd place with San Pelligrino. Testers noted that it had a sweet overtone, without any real mineral flavor. Fine work, Safeway!
So here we are. With a winner in a batch of 10. But we didn’t get to test all of the varieties I wanted to. I really was looking forward to lightly obsessing over some of the restaurant staples: Voss, Saratoga… so we’re likely to do a round II.
Suggestions for how to improve the second round are welcome! As are additional brands to test.
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Great water test. I think that adorable dog should be up for an endorsement deal!
You’re missing my personal favourite: Badoit. Not sure if you can track down a bottle in the States or not.
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I think you’ve confused sparkling mineral water with sparkling spring water (or sparkling filtered municipal-source water)…
Gerolsteiner and Apollinaris are the only real MINERAL waters in your test… and they are both damn good.
Perrier scoring higher than Apollinaris? San Pellegrino maybe, but Perrier never!
Mineral water is so good.
If only my income was better, I’d buy cases of it. Much better than any cola/soda.