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Special Report: Public water treatments can be a matter of taste

By Jan Norris

Terms like “undertones,” “balance” and “finish” are typical of wine tastings — but they also apply to any beverage. Last month, three tasters used them to help describe … water.
Not just any water, but water drawn from taps at various city and town halls along the coast. Spurred by a Manalapan commissioner who raised questions about the drinkability of his town’s water, The Coastal Star conducted a blind taste-test to determine whether he was all wet.
Waters were judged on appearance, aroma and taste.
The testers’ consensus? Manalapan’s water is pretty bad, but not the worst around. Gulf Stream, which gets its water from the Delray Beach water supply, took that prize. Boca Raton’s won by only a few drops.
Asher White and Jay Simpson, co-owners of Dolce Vita wine shop in Lake Worth, and Anne Marie Jeffrey, a Boynton Beach environmental science student specializing in water, judged the water.
Eight samples — one a “control” sample entered twice — were collected from each town hall in glass jars, labeled with a random three-digit code, and poured for the tasters into identical plastic cups.
Tasters sniffed, swirled, held the glasses up to the light and then tasted — swishing the water in their mouths before swallowing.
The results?
Boca Raton’s water was deemed most “easy to drink” with the highest score of 83 on a 100-point scale.
Deemed the worst, Delray Beach’s water scored only 46. Our water-collector was told to “let the water run” from the tap at Gulf Stream Town Hall, because it could be stale in the pipes. No one at Town Hall drinks the stuff; bottled water is their preference.
Taster Simpson said it had a “rusty flavor” and smelled “musty” as well.  White found the flavor “almost muddy,” but with a “nice minerality.” The aroma had “dirty undertones” that were off-putting, he said. Compared to all the others, Jeffrey called this water “horrible.” A “lot of chlorine” is used in it, she thought. “You can smell the chlorine,” too, she said.
Ocean Ridge’s water (which is purchased from Boynton Beach) “tastes of chlorine and plastic,” Simpson said. Scoring it only 57, tasters also noted the “cloudy” appearance. “It tastes like filtered water on a boat,” White said. Jeffrey guessed the city maybe used a “chemical” filtering process.
Manalapan’s water, given a 63 by the group, also was “not perfectly clear,” Simpson said, and it had a “mineral back finish.” White didn’t like it, and described it as “tastes like sand, but not dirty.” It had “more of a earthy smell — almost iron-like.” Jeffrey called it a “hard minerals smell.”
Lantana landed in the middle, with 69. All the judges detected a high chlorine smell in this water, and an “aftertaste of chlorine,” according to Simpson. White also noted a “little salty” taste. Jeffrey deemed it had “the worst smell” of all the waters.
The northernmost town, South Palm Beach, gets its water from West Palm Beach. It scored a 73, with the appearance weighing in heavy. Tasters liked the crystal clarity — White called it “nice, in the light.” The flavor, however had a “disinfected” taste, Jeffrey said. White called it “metallic,” and Simpson found it had “a hint of plastic on the back end.”
Highland Beach, with a score of 82, was only one point away from tying with the winner. It was Simpson’s favorite; he said it had a “very clear appearance, with no smell. Maybe a tiny bit of plastic taste at the end. All in all, quite good.” White noted some “sediment, but clarity” in the glass. He found this sample’s taste “very salty” with a “kind of manufactured aroma.” Jeffrey thought the clarity “good,” but the taste “mediocre.”
Boca Raton’s water, at 83, was Simpson’s favorite, though he noted “some particles” in the sample. “It has a bit of salt and savory flavor, and some minerality” and he found that pleasant. White noted the clarity, but also the “dull” finish, “no sparkle,” he said. This one is “easy to drink,” and “fresh” tasting, he said. He sniffed and said the nose had some “limestone; mild minerals” in it. He called it the “most balanced of all the waters.” Jeffrey called the clarity “pretty good,” with a “disinfected, acidic smell — almost like reverse osmosis.” She noted a slight “aftertaste.”
While the test was purely subjective, the tasters took their jobs seriously, giving time and thought to the samples before scoring. All commented on the differences that were, to them, easily discernable.
“You can definitely taste differences,” Simpson said. He was a student of cooking teacher Peter Kump at the James Beard Cooking School and co-owns Dolce Vita. White, a wine aficionado, frequently conducts wine tastings at Dolce Vita, following the same format as the water test.
 Jeffrey has tasted hundreds of waters and continues to learn about it as part of her studies of the environment.
All said they drink filtered or bottled water — nothing directly from a municipal
tap.                                          
Whose water
tastes best?
A Coastal Star tasting ranked tap water of area towns, from best to worst:
1. Boca Raton                  
2. Highland Beach
3. South Palm Beach/West Palm Beach
4. Lantana
5. Manalapan
6. Ocean Ridge/
Boynton Beach
7. Gulf Stream/Delray Beach

 

How we tested
the waters
Samples were collected four hours before the tasting in clean glass jars from unfiltered taps at each town or city hall. Eight samples were collected. With the exception of Boca Raton Town Hall, all water was collected on the barrier island.
The first water tasted was entered again under a different number, poured from a different jar. Tasters were given identical cups and were not permitted to discuss their scores.
The sampled towns were not revealed until the tasting was concluded.
— Jan Norris