Taste of Water

In a world of drinkers, be the sober one and you’ll really have fun

I have been using a BRITA filtering system since I left the Dolomites.

First, in Madrid, in an old apartment building near Calle Cruz, the pipes were filthy, and the water flowing from the tap was a mixture of chlorine from the swimming pool and literal pieces of said pipe floating. I invested in my first BRITA carafe and kept it in the fridge year-round. It was quite a heavy expense for my meagre Erasmus budget, but it was worth it.

Then, in Rome, water was so bloody hard that it incrusted every possible appliance - so to avoid ruining my coffee machine, I filtered water. I also spent an entire summer in a sort of water craze, as inside Termini train station, a “Water Bar” opened, selling VOSS water, Hawaiian water, and so on. I happily spent more money than I should have to buy fancy water bottles.

Then, in The Hague, the water was not exciting, and some days, it smelled of chlorine, so I filtered it with my BRITA. I noticed it allowed me to brew better coffees and teas, so I got one for the office, too, where I had my Aeropress to avoid the terrible Nespresso capsules.

In Lisbon, I am drinking tap water.

I had to get rid of my BRITA because of space issues. The counter allows just so many items, and I decided that I could drink tap water with no problem and give up the allocated space to the filter jar my better half was using. This system is way better than BRITA for some chemical reasons, and I decided that this was a battle I was not fighting. I keep my bullets for other battles, that are more meaningful to me.

The filtered water through the non-BRITA jug tastes disgusting to me. I cannot even drink a sip. So bad it is.

It is…salty, somehow, and it has a terrible bitter aftertaste for me.

Luckily, I like our regular tap water.

Only on certain days does it smell of chlorine, and I have learned to leave a glass of water sitting out to dissipate its smell. The resulting water tastes fresh, watery, and sweet, and I can live with that.

Water is exquisite, even in its tonic form.

It was a sort of Eureka!

The moment for me was the first time I tasted tonic water. The bitter aftertaste, sugary primary flavours and tiny bubbles make the perfect party water.

Before the advent of kombucha and non-alcoholic drinks, in a time when if you were not drinking, people frowned upon you, tonic water was my trick.

It is my trick today, too, and I am sharing it with you.

Ask for a tonic water, but instruct the bar person to prepare it, in the same manner, they would prepare a G&T. Indulge in your slice of lemon or cucumber, but without the alcohol. If they do not get it, ask for a G&T, with the gin to be served on the side. On the other hand, it can stay: do like me and walk away with your tonic without gin. You will be carrying around a perfectly mimetic glass with a delicious beverage but zero alcohol - and absolutely zero questions or suspicious looks at you for not drinking.

I used this trick at a recent event to which we had been invited. A lavish lunch was organised for a tennis event with hundreds of people. I was not in the mood for drinking—we were planning heavy mountaineering training the following day, and we had just come from a long training session the day before.

Alcohol was not really in my mood.

So it was easy to escape the aperitivo with this trick.

Much less so, to escape the almost mandatory wine glass that one is virtually being imposed - the alternative is having people looking at you sheepishly, thinking you may be sick or pregnant or a lunatic.

So there, I used my second trick: I let them fill my glass, pretended to be taking a sip, and never touched it again.

They kept filling my glasses at the event, and I kept ignoring them. The evening turned out surprisingly funny: when you are the only sober person among very affluent people under the influence who completely forget manner, stance, and feelings, you will be pretty amused by just witnessing their human (too human!) nature, their relentless races to the buffet as they hadn’t been fed in months, and their crazy stories.

And I got a decent pizza, which is always a highlight.