This Is The Most Popular Brand Of Bottled Water In America, So Why Do We Dislike It?

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The same way you were either raised in a one-ply toilet paper family or a two-ply toilet paper family, most people were either raised drinking bottled spring water or bottled purified water. Not only is there a literal difference in the way the two are collected and packaged, but many argue that there's a notable taste difference, too. Recently, YouGov released a report (via Food & Wine) stating that America's favorite bottled water is Aquafina, a purified brand, but not everyone would agree that it's necessarily the best tasting.

When we sampled and ranked 29 popular bottled water brands, we stuck Aquafina at number 28, right down there with the worst of the worst due to its plastic-tasting qualities. This seems to be the general complaint about Aquafina, that the taste is artificial and lackluster. Someone on Reddit said that "Aquafina is horrible" and "always makes [their] throat itchy," while another Redditor agreed that they "just don't enjoy the flavor ... even if it's cold." Although Aquafina rolled out aluminum cans to help with plastic consumption reduction, its modest environmental impact isn't enough to conceal the off-putting taste.

Aquafina bottled water is a PepsiCo brand, a direct competitor to Coca-Cola's Dasani brand, a similarly purified bottled water that isn't really all that different from other bottled water brands. Aquafina publicly admits that its water comes from public water systems and undergoes two purification treatments known as reverse osmosis and ozonation, which essentially means it's bottled tap water with certain minerals removed. Spring water, on the other hand, comes from the ground and is filtered through natural elements, such as sandstone and clay, which don't remove as many minerals.

While the amount of these minerals in spring water is usually so low that humans don't reap many benefits from them, it certainly impacts the taste of the water, which is why the source matters when it comes to picking the best-tasting bottled water. The over-purification of Aquafina gives the brand a bad rap. Plus, the fact that it's slightly acidic doesn't entirely help the reputation or the taste. One Redditor even pointed out that drinking Aquafina "is not significantly different from using a Brita filter on tap water, except you are paying [PepsiCo] for the pleasure of drinking from a plastic bottle."