Ordinary Gweilo

Many years ago, when I first went on holiday to France, I was told by friends that the tap water wasn’t safe to drink.  When a Frenchman of my acquaintance heard that this was a common view amongst Brits, he was most upset and insisted that French tap water was just as safe as English tap water.  Which it is. 

Hong Kong’s tap water is is also safe to drink, but only because after it is imported from China it is treated with chemicals.  Most people then filter and/or boil the water (to remove the chemicals).  We do both, as this picture shows.  The thing on the left is a ceramic filter, and at the other end is the pot in which we then boil the water.  In the middle are the jugs of chemically treated, filtered and boiled water fresh from the rivers of Guangdong.

Given the state of many of China’s rivers, bottled water is understandably quite popular, but here most of it is distilled rather than natural spring water.

One of the oddest products is Bonaqua (from the Coca-Cola company), which is described as ‘mineralized water’.  At first I assumed that this was just a strange piece of wording and that it was mineral water in the accepted sense, but actually it is distilled water with added minerals.  The picture of the mountain is obviously intended to make you think that it is clean and natural, and I guess I’m not the only one who was fooled.  Coca-Cola recently launched a similar product (Dasani) in the UK, but have had to withdraw it because there was a problem with some of the calcium they added.  It’s very popular in the US, and both Pepsi and Coca-Cola are, of course, keen to diversify away from their flagship products into healthier products such as water and juice (Pepsi own Tropicana, Coca-Cola own Minute Maid), snacks, etc.

In Hong Kong, Watson’s Water decided that they had to compete with Bonaqua, but Watsons Water with Minerals doesn’t pretend to be something that it is not -they simply give you the choice between distilled water with or without minerals.  Incidentally, I have been told a few times that distilled water is not good for you, and a few years ago Watsons Water took out adverts in the SCMP and elsewhere to counter these claims.  If I recall correctly, they also argued that the minerals in most so-called mineral water were of no real value, a point they presumably ignored when launching their new product!  Personally, I always drink tap water if it is available, safe and palatable, or otherwise natural mineral water.

Still on the subject of water, a few years ago, Perrier suffered a major setback when it was discovered that there was benzene in its product, which in turn led to the revelation that the bubbles were not totally natural but added as part of the production process (from gas that occurs naturally in the spring).  In some countries you will notice a very convoluted description of the product because they are not allowed to describe it as naturally sparkling.  Sales have never recovered from the PR disaster accompanying this problem. 

Talking of product claims, I am always amused to see that in Thailand, Evian mineral water is described as coming from “thousand year-old hills”.  Modern hills presumably being better than ancient rock formations.  Meanwhile, one popular brand of purified water in Thailand is called Carlsberg, just to add to the confusion.  Which is enough about water for one day, I think.