Jon Gabriel wrote:
>
> Fortune Magazine's site has an article on where the bottled stuff comes
> from:
> http://www.fortune.com/fortune/thisjustin/0,15704,428850,00.html
> Excerpt:
> THIS JUST IN
> Eau, Neau!
> Ever wonder what's in those little bottles of water you pick up at the
> health club or those gallon jugs you lug home from the supermarket?
> FORTUNE
> Tuesday, March 4, 2003
> By Lawrence A. Armour
>
> Poland Spring did. Back in the early 1900s every bottle of the natural
> spring water from Maine contained an offer: "$500 reward for evidence which
> secures conviction of any person for refilling bottles bearing our trademark
> or for selling as Poland water any water not from Poland Spring." That was
> long ago, of course ... but hold on. The labels on every bottle of today's
> Evian water contain a line that reads, "Do not refill."
>
> It makes you think. Do the people at Evian (which is "naive" spelled
> backward) know something we don't? And while we're on the subject, what the
> hell is the guy in the photo at the right doing?
Heck, I've refilled bottles of Evian with tapwater.
I went to the theater, for the first show of several we had tickets for that
season.
I bought an extremely overpriced bottle of Evian, because that's what they
were selling, and I wasn't supposed to bring my own stuff into the theater.
And I was pregnant, and needing to drink a fair amount of water. (I won't
go into detail on the snacks in my purse at this point....) $1.50 for 8
lously little ounces.
So when it came time to go to the *next* show, I just refilled my little
Evian bottle that I'd paid so much for before, stuck it in my purse, and
came into the theater with it. I was able to sip at it as needed during the
show. (Before the show and at the intermission, I availed myself of the
water fountain, and that didn't taste quite as good as the stuff I was used
to drinking at home.)
> So why do we plunk down 89 cents for a one-liter (33.8-ounce) bottle of
> Aquafina or Dasani, 99 cents for a liter of Poland Spring, $1.49 for a liter
> of Evian or Volvic spring water from France, or $2.79 for a 28-ounce bottle
> of Voss well water from Norway? Mike Bellas, chairman and CEO of Beverage
> Marketing Corp., has one answer: "Bottled water is affordable, portable, all
> natural, dietetic, noncarbonated, doesn't have to be refrigerated, and has
> more consumption occasions than any of the beverages we follow."
Or we're travelling, the local water tastes weird, and we know we have to
keep drinking stuff to stay sufficiently hydrated so as not to end up mildly
constipated, and the bottled water tastes a little less extreme than the
local stuff we're avoiding.
(There's a particular water fountain in the Memorial Union building that I
never, ever want to taste the water from again. I will pay $1.79 for 1.5
liters of Evian if that's what it takes to not drink the water in College
Station when I make my annual trip there.)
Julia
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