At Rainbow Grocery, a cooperative in this city’s Mission District, one brand of water is so popular that it’s often out of stock. But one recent evening, there was a glittering rack of it: glass orbs containing 2.5 gallons of what is billed as “raw water” — unfiltered, untreated, unsterilized spring water, $36.99 each and $14.99 per refill, bottled and marketed by a small company called Live Water.
“It has a vaguely mild sweetness, a nice smooth mouth feel, nothing that overwhelms the flavor profile,” said Kevin Freeman, a shift manager at the store. “Bottled water’s controversial. We’ve curtailed our water selection. But this is totally outside that whole realm.”
Here on the West Coast and in other pockets around the country, many people are looking to get off the water grid.
[...] Raw water is such a nascent business that there’s debate over what exactly to call the liquid. Daniel Vitalis hosts a podcast, “ReWild Yourself,” that promotes hunting for food and gathering water; he started the site called FindASpring.com to help people locate springs. He prefers the term “unprocessed water,” which echoes the idea of processed versus unprocessed food.
“I don’t like ‘raw water’ because it sort of makes people think of raw sewage,” Mr. Vitalis said. “When you say ‘live water,’ that’s going to trigger a lot of people who are into physics and biology. Is it alive?”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/dining/raw-water-unfiltered.html
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday January 03 2018, @01:47AM (5 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 03 2018, @01:54AM
Great, only 600K population there, roughly the population density of New Hampshire.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday January 03 2018, @05:49AM (3 children)
Wait -- seriously? They ship water across the Pacific? It isn't just a marketing name?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday January 03 2018, @04:26PM (2 children)
Yep, there's water shipped from Norway too. https://vosswater.com/ [vosswater.com] I've had Fiji and Voss bottled water and they are a good tasting bottled water. Where I'm at, the tap water is horrendous, so we usually cook with it and drink bottled water. Though, we usually buy reasonably processed and priced bottled water.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday January 04 2018, @08:22PM (1 child)
Wouldn't it be cheaper to get a Britta pitcher or similar? When I had to drink city water, I used one of those and the water tasted fine afterward.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 04 2018, @08:28PM
We tried one of those, but we seemed to go through them fast and they didn't seem to be cost effective.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"