Something in the Water Episode 10: The Future of Fine Water - Aquaminerology and Experience

In the final episode of "Something in the Water," we revisit our journey through the fascinating world of drinking water. Host Elena Berg chats with Jan Bender, a small water farmer from Denmark, about the unique story behind Iskilde water and the challenges of being a steward in the water industry. We also hear from Michael Tanousis, a water sommelier, who shares expert tips on how to select the best water and explains the importance of clear labeling and regulation. Join us as we wrap up the series with practical advice for consumers and reflections on the future of fine water.

Episode Guests: Jan Bender and Michael Tanousis

More information about Iskilde here 

More information about Aqua Amore here

More information about the episode and Something in the Water here.

Episode Transcript  and more information on the Pine Forest Media Website

Follow Pine Forest Media on Instagram @pineforestmedia

Hosted by Elena Berg

Written and produced by Elena Berg and Clark Marchese

Audio Editing by Clark Marchese

Cover art by Sarah Glavan

Theme Music by Josef Salvat

Transcript:

[00:00:00.900] - Elena Berg

Hello, everyone. It's Elena Berg, your host of Something in the Water, a podcast where we dive into the world of water from luxury mineral springs to the challenges of access, environment, and industry country for a deeper understanding of what we drink. All right, we have made it. This is the final episode of this mini-series on drinking water. What we're doing today is we're going to circle back and revisit where we started. We're going to be speaking with Jan Bender, a small water farmer in Denmark who for many years bottled a wonderful water called Iskilde. Jan has been extremely active in the mineral water world for a really long time and is a really close colleague of Michael Masha, who founded the Fine Water Society and was on the first episode of this show. Now that we've had nine weeks of water education, we're bringing it back to how small players in the water industry are particularly well suited to be water stewards, how engaging with the symbolism of water can promote a shift in understanding, and how we can communicate better with the larger public. And Then when we're finished with that, I want to send you off into the world with some practical knowledge as a consumer.

[00:01:35.930] - Elena Berg

We're going to speak with Michael Tanousis, a water sommelier, about what to look for when we choose our water. Michael is the co-owner and CEO of Aqua Amore, which is a mineral water and beverage distribution company based in London. Michael is extremely passionate about the mineral water world, how products are regulated and labeled, the differences between waters and how we experience these differences and ideas for better ways of describing this variation using consistent globally recognized language. And by now, I hope you're curious enough about water to start experimenting with the different tastes yourself, whether you live in an area with many different mineral waters you'd like to try, or you just want to appreciate your tap water better. We will end with some final reflections about the future of fine water. And with that, let's get this show on the road. Our first guest today is Jan Bender. I've known about Jan for years, but didn't have the pleasure of meeting him until last year when we both attended the Taste and Design Awards in Athens. So welcome Jan, and thank you for coming on the show. Listeners will know by now that I'm a sucker for an origin story, so maybe you can introduce yourself and tell us how How you got started in this wonderful world of fine water.

[00:03:03.910] - Jan Bender

The elevator pitch for Jan Bender. Yeah, okay. I'm a businessman. I've been working in the IT world most of my life. I built some pretty large IT computer and communication company in Africa and Europe. Then in about year 2000, I sold my group of companies. For a very short time, I had plenty of time and plenty of money, which is a poisonous combination. Then a neighbor of mine, I lived on a farm in Jutland. A neighbor of mine who had been drilling for water for his summer house came over and told us that the water was gushing out of the ground at an elevation of like a meter and a half. If we'd like to come and see, he'd never seen anything like that. I'd never seen anything like that either. We came over and it was really like you see these oil wells in Texas or whatever. It was quite impressing. And then at the time, a boss had just appeared on the market. A little bit thrilling and provoking that you could tell something that we got as a standard product, which was obliquiously available. Passinating. But I thought, if any water can be sold, then this water that's gushing out of the ground is suddenly so unique because it's gushing out of the ground, then we should be able to sell it.

[00:04:13.090] - Jan Bender

So after a few weeks, I negotiated a deal with the guy who owned this land to buy the rights to commercially use it. At the time, I wasn't aware that this water was actually quite good. It was just fun that it came out of the ground. But as we started making analysis on it, it turned out the water was quite good. We had this small production. It was just a hobby thing. Then Decanter magazine, were quite a few years back, they made probably the largest comprehensive comparison of fine waters that's been made so far. I think they had taken all the brands, all the big brands, and some selected dark horse unknown brands. And they made this huge set of samples that they made available to a very large collection of wine journalists and sommiers and cooks in Ross, England. What made the whole thing fantastic for us was that number one was a small public water utility company in the Thames Valley. And the story that the best water in the world was from a small community water utility in the Thames Valley went viral in the same way. Things were viral at the times.

[00:05:16.610] - Jan Bender

That means newspapers were coming this all over the world and magazines. When they mentioned who was number one, they also mentioned who was number two. Since we were the only commercial product that made it to the top of the list, and nobody has ever heard about us, we suddenly got from day to day, from delivering to a few local restaurants. We suddenly got calls from all the best restaurants across the world. It was quite dramatic change, and I decided to go for it. We scaled up a bit, and I set up a cooperation with the Norma restaurant, and a bit later with a restaurant called El Bulli in Spain. We had the two of the best restaurants in the world working closely with us. It was fantastic. Then came the pandemic and we had to fire everybody and let things down. We were really back to zero after the pandemic, which we used what we had to keep the company alive. The companies were still operational, but we didn't have the funds to finance. We started at that point. Then I met a couple of Danish people from the food industry, and they were interested in discussing how to restart.

[00:06:20.880] - Jan Bender

I think that something could come out of that. We're slowly setting the company up again now. We're now at the 217th level the skyscraper. It was a pleasure meeting you. I hope you enjoyed the ride.

[00:06:35.830] - Elena Berg

Exactly. Well, it's funny. This has happened every time I've asked anyone to give the elevator pitch is that what happens is it becomes the origin story. I think that's also a test of how difficult it is sometimes to summarize people's journeys through all this in a few sentences because often there are a lot of twists and turns.

[00:06:55.870] - Jan Bender

It's easy to summarize, but then it gets meaningless. I think the problem is if you summarize too much, all the stories are the same.

[00:07:02.880] - Elena Berg

Yeah, and I hope that that's something that this podcast has been able to capture, in part because I think the twists and the turns that people take make really interesting stories. But also to show that for independent producers and water sommeliers, water really is a passion above all else.

[00:07:18.960] - Jan Bender

I don't know. I don't think I know anybody has become rich from making water. There are probably some people out there, but I don't know. I've never met them. But I usually compare this to falling hopelessly in love with this tremendous this fantastic beauty with a very hot temper and who is chronically unfaithful. Every time you think, This is it. Now, no more. That's it. Then she'll send you a kind smile. I said, Well, I'll give it one more charge. It's got this combination of love and hate. It's absolutely not about money. One of the purposes of setting up the Fine Water Society, when we did that, was to try to make it more visible to the world that there was a difference between what you call the small-scale farmers and the large industries. But I don't think that difference is clear. I think one of the failures we did in the Fine Water Society has been the failure to communicate this outside our own world. It is like our means of communication right now, we're at an echo chamber. It's getting better, and For people like you, the water so many years, are probably going to be the ones who open the doors to the wider world.

[00:08:20.330] - Elena Berg

Well, exactly. Those are the other two things I'm trying to do with this podcast, to communicate with the public, obviously, and to break out of that echo chamber that you're describing. But also I want to show the difference between what the small water farmers are doing, these people who are making sure that water gets out of the ground properly, versus the big companies that are coming in and buying a bunch of small ones or even buying up the water rights themselves.

[00:08:47.280] - Elena Berg

But again, it's hard for the public to know if a small company has chosen to or had to sell out to a bigger entity or not. So they don't see the difference in terms of the day-to-day management.

[00:08:59.150] - Jan Bender

Basically, at But by the end of the day, the issue of ownership is secondary. It's more like the way that ownership is administered. It's the production. It's the way the production is done.

[00:09:09.380] - Elena Berg

But I think you bring up an important point.

[00:09:11.260] - Elena Berg

I guess my initial argument would have been that if you start getting into big production and big scale enterprise, that's inevitably where greenwashing starts to play a bigger role because it's hard to scale up and still actually be a more sustainable product. You tend to distribute further, you tend to have a bigger carbon footprint. In fact, I just talked with Michael Lusha, and we were talking about scaling up. His argument is that really it depends on how the product is produced and if the people producing it still are in touch with the product.

[00:09:46.890] - Elena Berg

Then, of course, the other issue is, aside from where bottled water is necessary for survival or safety, how do we justify putting it in a bottle ever?

[00:09:56.560] - Jan Bender

If we have any justification, any reason for being Then it's delivering products which are unique and which to provide an experience, a unique experience.

[00:10:05.570] - Elena Berg

It's so interesting because it reminds me of this difference between water and wine, which is part of the tension that exists, that wine we can just automatically put into this space of experience and enjoyment. But then you have this space that water occupies right now, where it's, of course, a necessary substance for human life. We need to drink water every day.

[00:10:28.670] - Elena Berg

Then we have this There's this tension between drinking water because we enjoy the flavors and we want to experience all the different kinds of flavors that water can offer.

[00:10:38.000] - Elena Berg

Then we have drinking water that we need to drink to survive. We have lots of different histories occupying this space.

[00:10:46.400] - Jan Bender

It's like we become a symbol which was easy to understand and easy to communicate. Bottled water is something everybody can understand, and it's easy to change. If you looked at the total climate effect of smoking or eating sugar, candy, I'm sure that you get some scary pictures, but people don't really want to give it up. It's not important. Bottled water, it's an easy symbol to take up, but it just doesn't really make sense. Really, it doesn't make sense at all.

[00:11:12.140] - Elena Berg

Yeah, no, I see that. I think I still keep coming back to the place of that tension that exists and I'm always trying to unpack it because I noticed that in my students, that their immediate feeling is, Well, if we could get rid of anything, why don't we get rid of something as superficial as bottled water? We don't need to bottle water, so we get rid of that. That's always that first space. I think that's based on the assumption that all water is the same.

[00:11:35.680] - Jan Bender

It's obviously something you meet all the time, this issue. Less now than 15, 20 years ago. I think the discussion is stupid. Frankly, I do. I think that people who can seriously sit drinking a Coke, talking about the environmental impact of bottled water, should go back to sport.

[00:11:55.640] - Elena Berg

Yeah, I think you bring up an important point, which is that often people choose their cause and they don't actually examine how they're living their lives in other sectors. I think there's a lot of problem with this. People really not maybe knowing how to examine all aspects of the way that they live, but certainly deciding that they're going to have one symbolic fight and that, Okay, well, let's choose this thing. It seems obviously unnecessary.

[00:12:21.910] - Elena Berg

I think this is where the water sommelier can come in and emphasize that that's not necessarily true and that water has a greater value value than we realize.

[00:12:31.840] - Jan Bender

Even in the areas where we have access to plenty of water, if people don't value it, they're also much more likely to spoil deposits that we have and so on. To help people understand that it's a valuable resource they need to protect and take care of is a part of our course.

[00:12:50.150] - Elena Berg

Let's get into how water sommeliers can get people to think about water differently. We've talked a lot about water experiences, and that can mean many things: water in fine dining, What are menus? What are tea stings? What are pairings? Is this the way we should go?

[00:13:05.170] - Jan Bender

But I think that the words and the talk and the how do you see this is the interesting part. I think the pairing is ridiculous, frankly, between you and me and the podcast I think that except for a few very unique and strange waters, the Roy type of things, most waters will go excellently with most food.

[00:13:25.190] - Elena Berg

Oh, interesting. Okay, because I actually found that to be one of the more compelling parts of the experience. The way we did it at our table is that we took... I went out and I found a dozen waters that I thought were interesting and had varying flavors. Rather than me deciding what to pair, I put them all on the table and I challenged all of us to try different waters with different foods and see what happened. It's totally possible that that was in the moment and it seemed like we were tasting stuff, but it really did feel like certain waters paired particularly well with those mineral high or low minerality, that there were certain combinations that made the flavors pop.

[00:14:05.580] - Jan Bender

I'm really done. The fact that certainly they're different. The waters and fruit have a strong effect on each other. Of course, if there's a difference, there's also the possibility that somebody will Is that one thing better than the other?

[00:14:17.100] - Elena Berg

Well, I really appreciate that perspective. There are very different opinions in the water world. I tend to view it as more of a subjective journey. Again, rather than telling my audience at the table what they should be drinking with their food, I just put it all down. Then we use that as an opportunity to have a conversation about what the different flavors did for us with the different flavors.

[00:14:39.660] - Jan Bender

That's exactly the way I think it should be done.

[00:14:42.500] - Elena Berg

Yeah. Well, I think that's also that the more I do science, the more I learn, the less confidence I have that I really know what's going on. I think that's a humility that I think should happen with age and experience in this world because we realize, wow, okay, I've just tapped into something, but there may be more going on here. I mean, an example would be the PhD research that I did. I studied the same bird for three years. I spent eight months a year living in the tropical forest with this bird. And by the end, I'm not sure I understood that bird any better. I realized that there were depths to this animal's social life that I was never going to understand. So I came out of there really in some ways doing less than I did when I went in or understanding that there was more to it.

[00:15:25.470] - Elena Berg

But in any case, how then, other than at a restaurant with people right in front of you, can the fine water industry make people, the consumers, aware of all the fun things you can do with water?

[00:15:35.450] - Jan Bender

I'm sure most people, if they are buying a wine and if they don't know it in advance, they'll either check it on the net where it will be a written description, or they'll at least be reading the back label We're used to the fact that the product is communicating the basics in words which we can recognize and put into a reference and then enjoy it in a setting where a lot of other things in the basic product will affect how much or how little we are enjoying it.

[00:16:01.320] - Elena Berg

Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of the water industry is already putting labels on where they're trying to describe the water. That was actually one of the fun experiments I did with my students where we tried to pair the label with the water. It turns out, I mean, it's hard to know how to interpret these results because they were students with no experience at all tasting different waters or thinking about this, but had a terrible time matching what they were tasting with how it was described, partly because the terminology was more about you can taste the waterfall over the rocks. That doesn't actually give you language that you're talking about, which is concrete and objective that ties those particular minerals to particular kinds of flavors that you can describe.

[00:16:44.020] - Jan Bender

We're not talking about the taste of the waterfall or the angels flying over the water because we want to. We talk to it because we don't have things to say, which I mean, we've tried to use some of the sommier comments on our labels, and I think it's difficult. If you ask For most people, what is your impression? It may not be similar to the words they use. It's difficult.

[00:17:06.540] - Elena Berg

Right. Well, I think this is a space where there's a lot of room to explore because it's almost a blank slate as it stands. I'm curious to see where we go with it. Jan, I want to say thank you for your time today. I've always appreciated your passion and your focus, and I look forward to our continued conversations.

[00:17:23.990] - Jan Bender

It was a pleasure. Thank you very much.

[00:17:30.960] - Elena Berg

That was Jan Bender, everyone, and we'll be right back after just a short moment to talk to Tanousis about what you need to know as a consumer if you want to start exploring the experiences that we just talked about.

[00:18:22.320] - Elena Berg

Welcome, Michael Tanousis. Maybe you can start by introducing your sofa us.

[00:18:26.630] - Michael Tanousis

Yeah, I suppose it is a little difficult to introduce myself off the cut, but then I do inhabit myself, so I should have a pretty good idea of who I am. I'm Michael Tanousis, and I am a co-owner, co-founder, and CEO of Aqua Amore. We're a UK-based company that specializes in, fundamentally, the distribution and retail of mineral water and bottled water and soft drinks. And beyond that, I've also been on a personal quest since starting the business to try find consistency and meaning in what it is that we're selling. And is it really the case that we're just fraudulently selling water in a fancy bottle to people when there is a really much difference.

[00:19:18.200] - Elena Berg

Okay, that's fantastic. That's actually pretty concise. I like the exploratory angle of that, too, that you're on a quest to figure this out. I think as I am, too. From my perspective, I started with my journey being quite a critic of bottled water because I saw all bottled water as the same thing. I didn't have an understanding of the different companies and different brands and different approaches to bottling water. In a way, at the time, I went into it as a way to, Okay, well, how do you understand your enemy? Well, you go in from the inside and you try to see what their operations are like from the inside. Since I started looking into all this, I can see that there are vast differences between a processed water, essentially tap water that's put into a bottle, versus a single source mineral water.

[00:20:06.020] - Michael Tanousis

In the UK, the narrative, common narrative with respect to bottled water and the predominant engagement with most media will always be, prima facie, it isn't bottled water. Why would you go to the cost of transporting bottled water to our country when we have perfectly clean tap water available? The conflation between the two transparent, clear, wet substances is something that is misunderstood at the very fundamental classifications of the two products. When I'm engaged with this question, I'll quite clearly point out that whilst both are water and wet and transparent, the key difference is that one of them is microbiologically pure source and the other one is chemically cleaned in order to be safe to consume. People can't tell the difference between them, and so it's easy to criticize and easy to focus on the means by which the product arrives in the shop, at their table, in the restaurant, rather than the nature of the properties of water itself. If we invite the listener to step through the looking glass and look at things from the less frequently seen perspective. From my point of view, having spent a number of years trying to understand the nature of naturally sourced water, the virtues of the product, and I say it's a product, the virtues of this natural substance sourced naturally are hidden in plain sight.

[00:21:45.420] - Michael Tanousis

The products as their package are presented to the consumer in a way gives them access to all of the information that they need to make a meaningful insight, an understanding, and positive decision for themselves, partially because of the way they're constructed and they're not very easily interpreted, and partially because market forces, they keep bending the rules and then deliberately obfuscate the nature of the message to the consumer, and partially through maybe apathy or lack of available information. It's just difficult to understand. I was involved with DEFRA consultations where they're speaking to the water industry about how can we simplify or do we have an opportunity to simplify a message in on the bottle of water regulations. This was a large part of that conversation is how can we make this product more approachable for a customer to really represent it for what it is, which is ultimately the top of the tree, a single product from single source, and that source doesn't change. If we talk about, introduce the listener to what the difference is between products that are sold in bottles that contain nothing else but water, you have three categories. One is table water, the next is spring water, and the final is natural mineral water, and it's a hierarchy.

[00:23:07.520] - Michael Tanousis

Table water is basically a water that isn't from a measurable ground source or of one specific origin. So table water could be opening the tap, putting in a bottle, and sticking in one's name on it and saying, Joe blogs water, or Joe blogs fancy water, or something like that. Then you We've got spring water, and spring water has to be microbiologically pure of source. But spring water is a mechanism that enables a marketing brand to sell water with one consistent marketing name such as Highland Spring. But the source doesn't have to be the same for that brand's name. It doesn't necessarily have to be from a ground source either that's regulated. You can give a typical analysis, or you're not obliged to give any analysis, actually. A natural mineral water, which is the top of the tree, and it has to say natural mineral water, has to be sourced in a single place, and the minerals in it have to be consistent. It's measured for two years before it can get the title of natural mineral water or the accreditation, certification, classification. It has to be bottled at source. It can't be tampered with in terms of…

[00:24:19.740] - Michael Tanousis

Or they're only regulated interventions, if you like, like removing of iron and bromine. Essentially, it's a product of provenance, and it has to be continually measured and regulated. If you want the highest form of quality, natural mineral water offers that to the consumer. But size of font and spring name doesn't have to be the most visible thing on the label. It could be away and then you can see the brand. That's where the confusion starts to creep in. With spring water, the name there can be augmented, so it can say organic spring water. With table water, it doesn't even have to say table water. It could just say anything other than natural mineral water or spring water. Once again, you have this Pandora's box of inverse potential for marketing terms and appealing to the consumer with your product. And yet the most highly regulated of the bottled water products is strake-jacketed by the needs to state nothing other than natural mineral water Really, the approachability or transparency of the classifications, regulations, they're concealed to the consumer unless they understand the classifications, which is a bit of shade.

[00:25:44.520] - Elena Berg

There are a lot of inconsistencies here. How do you recommend that we tidy this up?

[00:25:50.390] - Michael Tanousis

I would be a fan. I would advocate something like a more prosaic name like protected single-source. That's what I would... I would rename natural mineral water something along the lines of protected single source water. That way, people really understand what they're engaging with and they can make an informed decision. Or I would put a QR code on the cap which enables people to take a photo and understand what they are receiving and what they're not receiving by engaging with their choice of bottled water that is mascarading, in some instances, as a bona fide protected single source water. I think that's enough. It's just to capture the is to create a tipping point to capture the people who are curious enough to understand about the origins and the difference between points.

[00:26:38.960] - Elena Berg

Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. It would be nice, actually, I think, to have a little bit more of a global language around all of this.

[00:26:45.430] - Michael Tanousis

The next question is to understand what's on the label. And generally in Europe, you have to put the actual analysis of the minerals, the abundant minerals that present in the water on the label. Now, the minerals that have to be present on the label aren't regulated. It's down to the producer. So for example, some of them might want to inform the consumer that there are very few nitrates within the natural mineral water. Nitrates are indicative of organic pollutants such as rotting vegetation and leaves, et cetera. But over, say, 10 milligrams per liter or 15, they can also be indicative of malintroduced pollution as well. This would be stuff like pesticides, penetrating grounds and then the water source as well. The fact that the minerals are regulated, which is the fundamental ethos of natural mineral water, enables us to have some consistency in understanding what is going on with that water, what is the character of this water, what is its fingerprints, if you like, what's its mineral fingerprints? That is the crux of it. The beauty of the natural mineral water regulations or bottle water regulation, as they're created, is that they are designed to enable consumers to access mineral salts that occur naturally in water as a universal solvent for their physiological well-being.

[00:28:10.830] - Michael Tanousis

The beautiful thing about water is that the regulations recognize the mineral salts water are beneficial for the human body. That's what they're designed to create right in the beating heart of the water-water regulations. This is what I mean by stepping through the looking glass and seeing things from the perspective of those with the knowledge of the industry and the insight of the labeling and the product, is that for you, the listener, the minerals that occur within natural mineral water are beneficial or will affect your body in some way. So fundamentally, what it comes down to it, a natural mineral water is a source of wellness. These are gifts of nature that will affect your body in a positive way. And Almost never in a negative way. Although there are some mineral waters that are so, so, so mineral-rich that you can't really drink more than a small glass for because it will either run or affect you in some other way because of the sheer amounts of sulfates and other minerals.

[00:29:18.580] - Elena Berg

Okay, so I think that gives us a really clear sense of water as a source of nutrition, I guess, which is not the way people often think of water. They think of it as a necessary a backdrop. I think in general, people have a pretty poor understanding of how much calcium they need, how much magnesium they need, what these minerals actually do in the body physiologically. There's also space there for people to understand biology a little bit better and what their bodies need.

[00:29:48.580] - Michael Tanousis

Yes. Because one can't make health claims about their products, one can only state contains magnesium. It's up to the consumer to say, Is magnesium good for me? Do I need it? Do I want it?

[00:30:01.410] - Elena Berg

Then I think this segues to this other piece of how do we, beyond what our bodies need in terms of nutrition, how do we experience these different flavor profiles of water and develop preferences Absolutely. That's where I really wanted to ask you about the work you've been doing to develop that lexicon. Maybe first starting with, why is that lexicon important? There isn't a globally appreciated vocabulary for thinking about how these different minerals affect taste. I wondered whether you can walk us through a little bit of where you think the industry needs to go.

[00:30:37.780] - Michael Tanousis

Before I start talking about taste and blah, blah, blah, natural mineral water is the expression of the variety and the presence of mineral salts within H2O. Those mineral salts will vary depending on the journey that they've taken to the source. You can get some mineral waters which are maybe 20 to 30 1,000 milligrams per liter, possibly more. These are commercially available products in their territories such as Russia or Ukraine or Hungary. Hungary has very, very rich thermal springs, Czech Republic. Knoll started doing water and wine tasting, which was up in a project named Minerals and Terroir. We discovered that water can affect the experience of wine on the palate, and water can affect the experience of whiskey, and tea and coffee and other beverages. The minerals of water were definitely significant to add a variance to the palate in terms of taste. They would affect the taste of other things. But water doesn't reveal a taste. The mineral salts in water create a physiological effect on the palate. Mineral salts can affect the texture characteristics of H2O. They can affect the viscosity of the water. They can affect the feeling of weight or likeness of the water at various stages when you interact with it, when you first drink it, when it's on your palate, when you swallow it.

[00:32:13.260] - Michael Tanousis

There's also the after effect of the minerals on the palate, too, which continue to evolve through the presence of the mineral residue that remains on the palate as well. That was really the starting point of me recognizing that there could actually be a way in which we could describe the experiences that everyone is talking about. Not everyone, a number of people are talking about subjectively without really adequate words to describe other than oily, creamy, minerally, flinty, whatever words that we choose to use to describe it.

[00:32:51.520] - Elena Berg

What that implies then is that we could potentially develop a vocabulary, but that vocabulary certainly won't look like the vocabulary that's being used wine, for example, which has much stronger flavor profiles, and there's so much fruit that goes into how different wines taste in different contexts. It would have to be a really different vocabulary for water.

[00:33:12.660] - Michael Tanousis

But the opportunity is that we have what's known as a tabula rassa, which is a bank slate, in order to codify and formalize a language for water from the ground up, which for me is very exciting. That's really where the opportunity presented itself and how I started to develop the concept of what has now become aquaminerology. How is the aquaminerology evolving, Elena, is that it'll become the gold standard of water tasting, if you like to use that word again. I think water sommeliers for me, because right now it's a disparate notion which uses coincidental words It's a very subjective communication of an experience people are clearly having.

[00:34:04.940] - Elena Berg

I think I'm really intrigued to see where we go over the next few years in terms of professionalizing the language that we use around it. It doesn't sound like there are very many people who are trying to do what you're doing now. I'm really intrigued to see where it leads. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to it. Thanks again. I really appreciate it.

[00:34:25.120] - Michael Tanousis

And talk to you soon. Cheers, Elena. Nice speaking to you. Bye. Bye.

[00:34:34.960] - Elena Berg

Well, folks, we did it. We made it through all 10 episodes of this mini-series. We learned what a natural mineral water is and how we can enjoy these waters. We traveled all around the world, from England, India, from Australia to Austria, and all the way down to South Africa, to learn how small water farmers and water sommeliers had made a career out of their passion and how they stand on the front minds in many ways of the environmental resource management and water education worlds. Or at least they're very well positioned to do this work. We talked about sustainability in context in each of these places and how local solutions are really the best approach to really address any environmental issue we might be facing. We talked about public trust in the tap, public and private ownership, water rights, and what makes water such a symbol. I wanted to create this show because of the increasingly central role that as water is playing in local and international politics and society, particularly as we start experiencing the impacts of climate change. As an environmental scientist, I've been intrigued by the conflicting messages about mineral water and the bottled water industry as a whole, and I really wanted to dive right in.

[00:35:47.230] - Elena Berg

My hope is that after these 10 episodes, you now have a more nuanced understanding of water, what it is, where it comes from, the environmental challenges that we face, and the notion that our access to clean fresh water water has to be managed locally but has global consequences. I also hope you can appreciate now that not all water is the same. It comes from different places and it's managed differently. In most cases, the water from your tap is not the same as the single source mineral water that you might drink from a bottle or from the source itself if you are very, very fortunate. Water is precious, and we should appreciate it for the wonderful, life-sustaining, and delicious substance that it is. This mini-series is now available on the internet an archive package of information and water education for people to return to, to show others, to engage with, and I think that's pretty cool. I was obviously nerdy enough about the topic of water to make a whole podcast about it, but over the past couple of months, as I dug my fingers in even deeper, I've realized how much more there is to this world of fine water.

[00:36:50.390] - Elena Berg

We really have so much more to talk about. In addition to interviewing more small water companies across the globe, I would love to learn more about municipal water management and water filtration systems in the home, changing technologies in the world of plastic and water management, more about the social justice issues underlying access to fresh clean water. At the same time, I've also become increasingly intrigued by the emerging gastronomic trends in the fine water world. People are experimenting with water and food in really cool ways, including cooking with different kinds of waters, carbonating water in new ways, pairing water with food and wine to bring out the best in all of these worlds. We have a lot to explore, and maybe we'll come back to this. Lastly, before we close out this episode, I want to say thank you so much to all of you listeners who listened to me nerd out and followed me throughout this journey. My kids have been very patient through the recording of all these episodes, so I just wanted to give them a chance to say hello as well, and in this case, actually to say goodbye. So here we all are.

[00:37:56.470] - Elena Berg

Goodbye. Thank you so much for listening to this final episode of Something in the Water. I'm your host, Elena Berg, and I absolutely loved putting this podcast together for you. Something in the Water was produced and written by myself and Clark Marchese. Something in the Water is part of a larger network of environmental podcasts called Pine Forest Media, so I definitely encourage you to check out some of our other shows. More information about Pine Forest Media, as well as full transcripts, can be found at pineforestpods. Com. I'll also say that while water is more of a recent hobby for me, my main focus as a scientist has been animal behavior. If I were spilling secrets, I would tell you to stay tuned for my next podcast about all of that. The music you're listening to was produced by Joseph Salvat, who is my friend and a previous guest on the show. Cover art was made by Sarah Glavan, and the show was edited by Clark Marchese. Finally, thank you to the American University of Paris for making this podcast possible. If you feel called, writing a review and giving us a five-star rating is the best thing you can do to help us out so that we can keep making more sciencey podcasts in the future.

[00:39:18.540] - Elena Berg

So until next time. Bye. Bye.