Carbonated water (AKA soda water, sparkling water and mineral water) is a billion-dollar industry that caters to every budget: from ultra-cheap home brands to luxury imports sourced from Italy and Norway. Sodastream recently conducted a blind taste test to determine whether anyone can actually tell the difference. Here are the results.
To determine the quality of five sparkling water brands, SodaStream conducted a blind taste test with 100 Australian participants. The brands included in the test were Mount Franklin, Voss, Santa Vittoria, San Pellegrino, Woolworths’ home brand and Soda Stream tap water.
They discovered that hardly anyone could tell the difference between the expensive imports and cheap local versions. In fact, most people slightly preferred the latter.
Now, it goes without saying that these findings should be taken with a grain of salt: SodaStream does have a vested interest in the results, after all. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see how the non-SodaStream brands ranked in relation to one another.
Of the pre-carbonated options, the two cheapest brands came first and second. Voss, which costs over $6 per litre, scored a less than impressive 5.8 out of 10.
This seems to suggest that any ol’ brand will do when it comes to sparkling water. If the results are genuine, the price/quality relationship is mostly psychosomatic. You can check out how each brand ranked and how much they cost per litre in the infographic below.
[Via Sodastream]
Comments
2 responses to “Which Brand Of Sparkling Water Tastes Best? [Infographic]”
It probably should be worded that TKP Marketing conducted the survey on behalf of Sodastream, rather than Sodastream conducted the survey themselves.
It’s hard to go past 75c for Soda water if you want it. In saying that, I mix my soda water with other things so I can’t really comment.
There is a difference between sparkling water, soda water and mineral water. It’s all got to do with what minerals (should be) added. Sparkling water should just be that, normal H2O, with no additives, carbonated. Soda water should have some salt added, and Mineral water should have other minerals added, these additions change the flavours.
Generally speaking the home brand “Soda water” is actually just sparkling water. While the more expensive stuff has added salts and minerals (depending on what they’re claiming to be, under all the branding).