Best Tasting Water in Tampa Bay

The annual best-tasting-water competition took place Friday February 26 in Zephyrhills, Florida. According to Laura Kinsler, in an article in the Tampa Tribune, Zephyrhills is the "City of Pure Water" and the reigning best-tasting-water town in the Tampa Bay region. Zephyrhills is known all over the world for its water.

A dozen city and county water departments from the Tampa Bay area competed in this year's event. The contest is sponsored by the Florida Section of the American Water Works Association. Zephyrhills has won several times before in the Florida Rural Water Association competitions but 2009 was the first year it entered the regional competition. The town was anxious to defend its title this year. In her article, Kinsler quoted David Henderson, the Utility Director of Zephyrhills, who gave credit for Zephyrhills' win to the water quality. He said "It's the source. We're really blessed in Zephyrhills that the water is so low in organics, we don't have to treat it with a lot of chemicals."

We recently discovered that the water in our area is treated with both chlorine and ammonia. This is the case with most city water treatment plants in our region. The ammonia is added to diminish the chlorine smell. Zephyrhills water comes from 10 wells spread across the town and is pure enough that only a small amount of chlorine is added. For this reason they don't need to add ammonia. They don't even have a water treatment plant. The big question on Friday was whether Zephyrhills could retain the title and therefore the trophy for best-tasting-water.

The panel of judges sipped the water samples as if they were tasting fine wines. Laura Kinsler reported in Saturday's Tampa Tribune that the judges tested the aroma, color and clarity of the samples and "...they swish(ed) and swallow(ed) and (ate) crackers between samples." There were samples from Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, Hernando County and Pasco County which includes Zephyrhills. According to Ms. Kinsler the panel of judges praised all the samples but no one sample earned a perfect score.

What makes a good tasting water? I never realized the subtle nuances that make water taste good or bad until I read an article by Joe Pomento on the website Aqueduct Magazine cubed, entitled "The Taste of Water." Water can have a variety of tastes. It can taste sweet, metallic, salty or just plain bad. Taste is really a combination of flavor and aroma. Although water should be tasteless, odorless and colorless it usually ends up tasting of something. Water will absorb a little bit of anything with which it comes in contact. This happens because water is a universal solvent. Wherever water flows before it reaches its final destination it will pick up minerals and therefore flavors as it goes. For this reason the water will taste better the closer it is to its source. Water can be good tasting or bad tasting due to the presence of minerals in it. Having some minerals in the water is a good thing but it needs to be just the right amount. Too many minerals cause the water to taste metallic. Too few minerals make the water taste dull or flat. Have you ever tasted distilled water?

By now you are probably wondering if Zephyrhills won again this year and retained its title of best-tasting-water. No, this year's title was won by Hernando County which lost to Zephyrhills last year in a taste-off. Hang in there, Zephyrhills, there's always next year.

Sources: The Tampa Tribune

http://www.mwdh2o.com/Aqueduct/dec2001/taste.htm