The world’s best water – it’s most plentiful element – tastes best cold.
It?s a topsy-turvy world. Spring, summer, winter and autumn come and go. The searing heat and frigid cold take a turn and then they?re gone. In between: refreshment. Cool, clear spring-fed streams carousing down a mountain ravine feed calm pools where wide-eyed trout await passing nymphs. Rampaging gully washers chafe at boulders old as dinosaurs. Water, water everywhere, good enough to drink. Nature has a hand in creating the world?s best water. Climate is a catalyst in its production. Sun and rain add a special sparkle. But there is mystery behind each refreshing sip.
Folks marvel at a sky whose iridescent blue hues support massive columns of multi-tiered thunderheads. The clouds well up as if insulted and inhaling a deep breath before throwing the first punch. Their mushrooming pinnacles roll outward and the changing whiteness launches games of look-at-that for children who see in a cloud bank a ghost with upraised arms or a dog wearing a hat. Few observers ever stop to think that they are witnessing the making of water.
What is water?
Precipitation is the fancy name for water. Water can be solid or liquid. Rain and snow are water. Sleet and hail are water. The seasons and the temperature contribute to the form in which precipitation visits the earth. Warm air that carries moisture from the earth rises much as the heated air in a room rises to the ceiling. In nature, the warm and wet air that is floating skyward eventually cools. It is the condensation created by the cooling evaporated moisture that creates precipitation. It’s an amazing process that contributes to the world’s best water.
What places have the most water?
Many regions of the country luxuriate in abundant supplies of water. A person can raise a ladle at any time of the year in lots of places. In areas where natural sources are iffy, one can partake of the world?s best water by selecting water products ranging from five-gallon cooler jugs to sport bottles. But imagine getting your water from nature.
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Think of meandering up a misty, mountainous path edged with fragrant ginger flowers and wild orchids. If the path you visualize is located on the island of Kauai in the state of Hawaii, you?re in for a lot of water. An average rainfall there of more than 450 inches per year is not unusual. Other wet places include Alaska?s town of Little Port Walter where more than 210 annual inches is not uncommon.
What makes water taste so good?
Water is an amazing combo of hydrogen and oxygen in a two-to-one mix that gives it a biochemical nomenclature: H20. Its taste should be clean and fresh. The addition by city municipalities of chemicals such as chlorine, a purifier, can impact the taste. Naturally occurring biological events such as warm-season manifestations of algae in lakes and reservoirs make a taste difference. Minerals such as magnesium and calcium have an influence on taste. Some folks install drinking water purifiers in their homes. Not everyone can drink directly from a pure, mountain stream.
Have your water as you like it
Bottled waters come mostly as filtered varieties or products captured from sub-surface springs. One popular brand packaged in a square, plastic bottle consists of artesian water. It comes from a remote jungle island whose vast artesian aquifer abuts a primitive rain forest. Artesian water comes from a source deep underground.
Spring water can come from almost anywhere. Denmark, Germany, Spain and mountainous regions of New England are producers of bottled water. Each brand has its own characteristics and prices can be influenced by fancy packaging, aggressive advertising campaigns or the lack thereof. Lots of people swear by good old American tap water. But bottled varieties can?t be beat for portability, convenience and easy storage.
The body of evidence is human
Water is a substance that means life or death to human beings. The human body is more than 60 percent water. Individual cells, depending upon their functions, may contain some 90 percent water. Perspiration and urination are two of the major ways in which the body loses water. Experts contend that adults need to replace their lost H2O by drinking the equivalent of about 80 ounces each day. That?s 10 glasses of water, if each glass contains eight ounces. Dieters long have been counseled to drink eight glasses a day. Sounds like a good idea — a nice cold glass of water with a few ice cubes for good measure. I?ll pour you one, too. Here?s to water! Here?s to life!