Smart Water? Not so smart consumer

In last week’s shopping delivery we received a free sample of Glaceau Smart Water.

“Smart Water”? How can water be smart?

Well it would appear that this water goes several steps further than your average bottled mineral water. What the people at Coca-Cola have done is the following.

They have taken natural mineral water (you know that stuff that comes out the ground in areas like Buxton and gets bottled pretty much straight away), and they have “Vapour distilled” it. Now I can only guess but that sounds like they mean they have boiled it and collected the pure condensed water.

They then add their own mixture of electrolytes: Calcium chloride, magnesium chloride and potassium bicarbonate.

Clever stuff hey? And the price for a 600ml bottle of the stuff: 60p

60p for a bottle of mineral water. Doesn’t sound too bad does it?

Well maybe not, until you think what they have done.

In areas where water percolates through limestone and other carboniferous rocks, it dissolves some of the rock so that the water ends up containing various ions such as calcium, magnesium, carbonate, bicarbonate, and possibly some chlorides as well.

We call it Hard water, and here in the Thames Valley it comes out of the taps a lot cheaper than buying it in a supermarket. So you could buy a bottle of Smart Water, drink it, enjoy the natural hard water taste and then refill it from a tap. Hey presto, low cost water in a neat re-usable container.

By the way, 60p will buy you 1.5litres of Buxton mineral water.