77
Meet the water sommeliers: they believe H₂O can rival wine – but would you pay £19 a bottle?
(www.theguardian.com)
Meet the grifters...
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
77 points (80.8% liked)
World News
49774 readers
1744 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Just fucking piss off.
The final fate of all water, no matter how much the bottle cost.
My body is a MACHINE that turns WATER into PISS
Just like those charlatans peddling water with baking soda-err... I mean alkaline water.
No. Stop trying to monetize everything.
Basically it's the same thing most monetize, namely the idiocy of some people.
Uh....a vending machine will charge $2.50 now for 1/3 of a litre of water in Canada, and people lost their shit at paying $1.50 a litre for gasoline.
mineral content can be measured by evaporating a sample and weighing what is left as milligrams per litre of total dissolved solids (TDS)
I'd recommend ion chromatography here if you want accurate results lol
£19 a bottle for water so dirty that it leaves behind measurable solids when it evaporates.
Dude, the whole thing is a scam. We don't want to get bogged down with expensive fancy equipment.
It worked for Scientology
Their e-meters are relatively basic. They just slap $200 of components in a box and charge $5000 for them
load more comments
(1 replies)
Given that we know what the mineral content of these different waters are, wouldn't it be a trivial matter to replicate that by starting with a very pure water source, and simply adding the right minerals?
It's not only trivial, people already do that for coffee.
Yes but us water experts are able to detect quantum fluctuations from the ground state of the particles in the water to optimize the ionization of the water and improve the interaction with your taste buds
We are being persecuted for our beliefs in homeopathy. They won't even let me pay my taxes with water from a jar of $100 bills.
Maybe it's like diamonds. Even if it's exactly the same it has no value unless it's extracted from conflicted zones.
Depends if you're counting Russia, looks like. DR Congo is the only other one on the list that's sus that way, although Zimbabwe is especially problematic even at peace.
Pfft. Once you actually start doing science the magic goes away. Do you just hate art? /s
Fuck no
This is just Nestle with extra steps.
This seems like a nice scam to get in on. I just need some magnificent facial hair to get started.
Have a comparable beard. Still don't get taken seriously.
Wait, it's NOT the Onion!
Fucking stupid , this brings me back to “Pen and teller’s bullshit episode on “fancy water” lol.
Was that the one where they used the garden hose behind the restaurant? I so loved that show.
load more comments
(1 replies)
As someone who actually appreciate water, definitely NO. We have high quality tap water here, and although there are differences in taste, it's not worth paying extra for at a restaurant.
But if they attribute magic healing qualities, claiming it's from ancient magic/holy sites, I bet people would travel to get it, because that's how stupid some people are.
I mean... Wine tasting is a scam too.
there was a penn and teller bullshit episode on this once. No they can't tell the difference. They served everyone tapwater from the same hose, but in fancy bottles, and now everyone started to have preferences.
No, no I would not.
Ideally, water shouldn't taste like anything. If you're deliberately seeking a taste, it's now another drink.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Some nice restaurants offer tap water for free or a small fee. I wish this would be more common.
Pretty much every restaurant in the US will give you free tap water (with ice in it, even). At some places they’ll even just bring it to the table before you ask.
But I wouldn’t recommend the US in general.
It’s one of the few things we got right, doesn’t redeem us but we did get that right
That and public libraries (though we’re trying to kill those now).
Here in Canada we get a free glass of water with ice in it around the same time you get your menu.
And in my experience I would recommend Canada. Although traffic in Toronto is terrible.
Most of our cities have terrible drivers.
load more comments
(4 replies)
More like ice with some water in it.
That’s the way I like it. 😁
lol fuck off. yea I get it extremely rich people can be very stupid but don't bring water into your stupid grift. It is not a luxury, it is a basic human right.
oh hey it's that ProZD skit from a decade ago but unironic.
Is it a 6 or 7 L bottle? If not then hell no
laughs in norwegian
view more: next ›