Before even coming to Spain, both Kahina and I (without even knowing each other before the trip) had the idea of bringing our own bottles of water in our luggage. Even the Dr. Rubin found it weird and funny; it actually sparked an idea for the both of us to find what water brands here in Barcelona we found tasted best.

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With this in mind, we set out and ordered water at each restaurant we visited and would compare it to our Poland Spring and Nestle water from NYC. Compared to NYC, when you order water at a restaurant in Europe or here in Barcelona, you are given either bottled water (mineral or sparkling) that you pay for or tap water - which most of the time almost tastes like sewer water. In NYC, restaurants will provide water (tap water) for free and even bring it to the table once you are seated. In NYC alone, most people will request tap water not because it is free but because NYC has the best tap water in the country. For us to go from NYC’s delicious tap water and bottled water such as Poland Spring, Aquafina, and Deer Park that have a crisp taste.

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Concluding our trip we found our winners!

We decided that Font d’Or and Viladrau (product of Nestle) was our favorites. They were crisp and did not have that mineral water taste that most bottled water in Europe has. And comparing each of the different brands of bottled water to each other we found that price did have an affect on the taste quality of the water. For Font d’Or, while it was one of the most expensive bottles of water we had, it did have one of the best and just purely water tastes. Nestle is also a large distributor of water here in Spain producing two of the brands we tasted: Viladrau and Aquarel. While Viladrau tasted like water we could get in NYC, Aquarel was completely the opposite with a very mineral taste and almost metallic after taste.

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Although we focused this project on bottled water at Barcelona restaurants, that didn’t stop us from trying other bottled water as well. We found one that tastes almost identical to Poland Spring (which made us very happy,) and that is Bezoya. We turned our own fear of foreign water into a challenge to seek what we wanted to experience when we drink water and that is a refreshed feeling rather than a feeling of actual disgust.