Usually, people choose drinking water based on availability. Some choose to have a filter in their home for their tap water or some choose to drink tap water. One way that many people buy water to drink is bottled water.
There are a lot of different bottled water brands and many people can differentiate between the different brands of water based on what kind of water they have. For example, you can buy natural spring water or you can buy artisan water. You need to make a choice between what kind of water you want to drink based on the taste, but not all water is created equal. One of the water brands that you can buy is Dasani, and many people have strong feelings about this water brand. Here’s more information about why Dasani tastes bad, as some people believe.
What is Dasani
Dasani is a popular water brand that’s sold everywhere. You probably see it when you go to concerts, stores, or even overseas. Dasani is purified tap water that has a combination of different ingredients. It’s owned by the Coca-Cola company and it’s launched in 1999. Dasani has been noted for its distinct taste and there are many things that contribute to its taste. Ingredients, the water source, and their filtration and purification process all contribute to the taste of the water. This is often the case with all brands of water.
Since Dasani’s release in 1991 by Coca-Cola, there’s been a huge uproar after people discovered that the so-called pure water was actually purified tap water. After releasing to the UK, Coca Cola has to discontinue the product from the UK since it contains too much bromate which is a chemical compound that’s been found to increase the risk of cancer. Before 2004, The Guardian reported that the Dasani scandal has left coke in a £25 million loss from the cancelation of contracts and advertising deals with the product.
Due to the ‘weird’ taste that Dasani gives off, they’ve been subject to a lot of memes as regular consumers have taken a storm on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram to make fun of the taste and discuss conspiracies about the company. A popular YouTuber Shane Dawson, known for his popular conspiracy theory investigations and documentaries published a video explaining that the product has a strange taste, makes a fizzing sound when opened and contains salt which actually makes drinkers more thirsty, therefore consuming more of the product.
In this video that caused the conspiracies and discussion about Dasani to spiral, Shane tries the water on camera, and upon opening, he notices a fizz sound which leads him to say “Why does Dasani have a fizz when you open it? That’s a soda thing, that doesn’t make sense. That means there’s something else in it.”
Why Does Dasani Taste Bad
Dasani has an odd reputation because some people love the water but other people seem to really hate it. Much of the flavor of their water is due to minerals and other compounds that the water ends up with on its journey. As water flows through different parts of the ground, rivers, or pipes, it naturally picks up some ingredients that contribute to its flavor in a small way.
Another thing that dictates how water tastes is where it comes from. If you get water from a well, for example, then there might be a mineral or chalky taste because it’s passing through limestone. If you get distilled water, it’s distilled to remove anything that’s been dissolved in it so it might have almost no taste at all. Either way, Dasani is tap water and that definitely adds to the taste of it.
Also, where the water is collected matters. If the water is from near the beach, there might be a slight scent of sulfur because of microbes in the groundwater. If it’s purified and it comes from rivers or lakes, this makes it have an earthy, organic taste because of the leftover bits of decomposing plant matter in your water. Then, when you live in cities like New York or San Francisco, you can have reservoir water that starts from mountains that have a very clean and distinct taste. You’ve also probably had a drink of spring water and tasted all of the minerals that alter its flavor of it.
During the pandemic, you may have noticed pictures on social media of shelves full of Dasani while other competing brands were completely sold out. There are a few reasons why other competing brands are chosen over Dasani, even in a pandemic where everyone was willing to take what they could get their hands on.
The first is that the Coca-Cola company famously had to disclose several years ago that their water is essentially just municipal tap water that has been factory filtered and then enhanced with their own proprietary formula of minerals before bottling. This is not unique to Dasani, though.
Years ago, Dasani famously had to disclose that their water was just municipal tap water that had been factory filtered and enhanced with Dasani’s own formula of minerals before they’re bottled up. Although their formula is proprietary, this process isn’t unique to Dasani and many water brands follow the same thing. Unless the water you’re about to buy has the words naturally sourced or natural spring water on the bottle, it’s just filtered tap water with minerals added after filtration. But rather than listing these minerals, on the ingredients, Dasani just mentions salt. There’s nothing wrong with this as salt is a mineral that naturally occurs in salt. It’s rare to find pure water with no trace of salt. This salt is what gives it its flavor.
For those who aren’t science nerds, salt is a mineral comprised of sodium chloride. Sodium chloride forms from the ionic bonding of sodium ions and chloride ions. There is one sodium cation (Na+) for every chloride anion (Cl–), so the chemical formula is NaCl. There are many other minerals that naturally occur in the best sprig waters are salts, for example, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, potassium bicarbonate, magnesium sulfate, and sodium chloride.
You may have wondered why some spring waters taste completely different is because they originate from aquifers that have their own unique mineral composition. These minerals are natural sources in waters that come from underground rock formations they filter through. Rather than the water flowing through underground rock formations to collect minerals, Dasani’s minerals come straight from a lab.
Although chemically it’s no different than if spring water had the exact same mineral composition, people are still not happy about the fact that they have to pay for glorified tap water. Another thing that annoys them is that Dasini genuinely tastes bad. Coca Cola have even constructed test groups of just so that they can get their mineral formula just right so that people like the taste.
All of these things can deeply affect how your water tastes and some people won’t like the taste that occurs because of these things. That’s why many people don’t like Dasani because they aren’t into the treated tap water taste.
Water Source
The source of Dasani is local municipal tap water supplies. This means that the water comes from the tap water of a city or town. While this water is filtered at bottled water plants before it’s bottled and sold. Places Dasani source its water from including Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, and California. Dasani bottles internationally in many locations, like in the United Kingdom or in places in Malaysia.
Filtration and Purification Process
Filtration and purification also contribute to the taste of the water. All Dasani water goes through reverse osmosis to remove large particles in minerals from the water. This is what’s used to make seawater drinkable by removing the salt from the water.
Drinking water must contain minerals so that they can be fit for consumption, however, even though some of them are removed in the purification process. When mineralization and disinfection occurs, this is the process where the right amount of minerals are added to the water in a formula. Dasani water goes through a final process in an ozone chamber where microbes are killed through ultraviolet light and the water is disinfected. This is the process that happens right before it’s ready to be bottled. This process also makes sure to eliminate odors that are super noticeable.
There is a purification process explained on the Dasani website detailing how they purify their water. Essentially, what happens is the volatile organic compounds and chlorine are absorbed bypassing the water through granular activated carbon filtration.
Then, minerals and additional impurities are removed by forcing the water to go through a semipermeable molecular level membrane at high pressure which is reverse osmosis.
Next, ultraviolet light disinfects the water by destroying microorganisms and this ensures that the water is safely purified before Ree mineralization.
The next process of remineralization occurs in the addition of small amounts of different minerals. Small amounts of sodium are added to make sure the Dasani water tastes good.
The final part of the purification process uses ozone gas to pump the water to disinfect it. It’s a different type of oxygen, so dissipates into the oxygen gas that we breathe and it doesn’t leave any taste in the water. This is ozonation.
Water Ingredients
Ingredients of the water are very important to tastes, and Dasani has four ingredients. Dasani is composed of tap water, magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride, and salt. Most of these ingredients are added for taste but its ingredients do change a lot more than the taste.
Magnesium sulfate is on its own a drying agent, but it has purposes in medicine also. In Dasani, however, it’s mainly added for taste and it’s not a very strong taste in the water, but it does contribute to it.
Potassium chloride is commonly known to have a weak and bitter salty flavor. This might be the taste that people are wary of in Dasani because it has a chemical or metallic aftertaste, and you can really taste this in the bottle of Dasani water. It’s a good idea to have, but it is an ingredient that impacts the taste a lot.
The last ingredient is salt and this is what they put in almost every single processed food. One bottle of Dasani doesn’t have much salt, but drinking six or seven bottles will give you a high amount of sodium content.
Now, you know a little bit more about Dasani and why its taste is very distinct. Everyone has a different palette and everyone enjoys different tastes so just because everyone else doesn’t like the song he doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it.
It’s Trendy To Make Fun Of Dasani
One search for Dasani on Twitter will reveal a community of Dasani haters. Popular influencers like Corinna Kopf write that the water is canceled and go on to share memes about the way the company manufactures its product. This flood of hate started when the Shane Dawson documentary that talked about Dasani’s taste was released.
Before the Shane Dawson documentary, hatred about Dasani has been going on for years and it’s been the heart of meme culture, especially on Reddit. There’s even a subreddit for fans of Dasani that post about the product. Another trigger of the Dasani hate was during the pandemic when the shelves were full of the product even after people were panic buying.
Despite all the hate that it looks like Dasani’s receiving, a Coca-Cola representative said in a statement that the supply for Dasani has increased due to more demand. “We’ve experienced increased demand during this unprecedented time and our bottling partners have stepped up production and distribution to do all possible to maintain a supply of DASANI at retailers across the country,” the company said in the statement.
World-leading sommelier Martin Riese explained his dislike about Disani in an interview with Mel Magazine saying “I’m really not interested in the taste of highly processed, designed-by-focus-group factory water, which is what Dasani is,” Riese told Mel. “So it makes me happy that Americans are finally realizing that they shouldn’t spend their money on filtered tap water.”
There’s Nothing Wrong With Dasani’s Ingredients
After the process and filter municipal tap water, Dasani adds certain minerals and salts into the mixture. “All water has minerals, and the different types of minerals sort of determining the taste for the water,” said Gleick, “and they want Dasani everywhere to taste the same.”
With the mineral formulation, Dasani contains, there’s actually nothing wrong with its ingredients. All water has minerals that determine the taste of the water. A spokesperson for Dasani has also said that they want Dasani everywhere to taste the same. He’s also said that Dasani’s ingredients aren’t so different from other bottled waters like Aquafina, its Pepsi competitor, and Nestle Pure Life. “They’re all sort of low-mineral, low-salt, and I would even argue bland-tasting waters,” spokesperson Gleick said.
David Sedlak, co-director of the Berkeley Water Center, said that these factors can contribute to a person’s liking or dislike of the water. “There have been a number of scientific studies on the aesthetic properties of water and people tend to prefer certain mixtures of salts (i.e., sodium, potassium, chloride, carbonate, etc.),” Sedlak told Business Insider in an email. “People also tend to dislike the taste of water with very high or very low salt levels.”
It’s also been said that the factories the water is produced in can also contribute to the dislike of the water. David Sedlak said “There have been a number of scientific studies on the aesthetic properties of water and people tend to prefer certain mixtures of salts (i.e., sodium, potassium, chloride, carbonate, etc.),” and this is what Dasani contains. The theory that the salt in there is to make people more thirsty is off as all water containers minerals. The salt content of Dasani is as low as all of the water brands on the market right now.
