Tap water

※ This article discusses the tap water of Austria and Japan.

I have to admit, I am a big fan of Austrian tap water.

Whenever I leave Austria, I know that in most cases, the water in the destination country will taste much worse. I understand that the water taste is a subjective matter and we will discuss the details later on. The point I want to make is that in Austria the tap water is of high quality (at some places exceeding the EU’s required standards multiple times) and constantly monitored. Austria has many lakes and you can drink from almost all of them. For German-reading people, trinkwasserinfo.at is a good place to get an overview. The main reason for the high quality is the filtering done naturally when water passes through the rocks of the Alps. This is also the time when the water acquires a lot of minerals. As the Alps stretch through 8 different European countries, the high-quality water can also be found e.g. in Germany and Switzerland. But the local law regarding pesticides influence the quality greatly. For the record, the water from Graz (where I studied), comes from Hochschwab according to the organization in charge.

When I arrived in Japan, I had to determine whether the water from the tap can be drunk or not. You can easily find out, that Japan’s tap water is clean; as you would expect from a first-world country. However, as in most countries, Chlorine is added as biocide killing germs and algae. Chlorine has a very strong taste and if you are not used to it, you will immediately recognize that chlorine was added in this particular water. So when we arrived, our dormitory manager told us that he drinks the tap water every day and you can certainly do that as well. I agree, but the taste was terrible for me and is even worse in restaurants. So I usually buy water at the supermarket. The most expensive water even comes from the Rokko mountains. If you are familiar with Kobe, you will know, Rokko mountain is very close and therefore the water is a regional product.

In March/April, I was visited by my dad and brother. They brought me a small bottle of Austrian tap water. I shared the bottle with one of my Japanese Aikido friends and asked him, which of the unlabelled tap water tastes better. He immediately responded with the water (unknowingly, that it is) from Japan. I had to expect it, but hoped for a different result.

As of now, I got used to the water. It is very hot right now (the rainy season has just ended last week) and in the short breaks I drink more water than I am able to carry in bottles to the training. So I drink the water from the cooling unit provided in all sports locations at Kobe University. The cooling unit has a small reservoir of water. It is filled with tap water automatically and cools the water before it is released. It also tastes terribly, but I don’t see a good alternative. Now, I don’t even recognize the chlorine anymore, as it is so common.

Now, let’s look at the data. I want to compare 4 waters. 3 from Japan, 1 from Austria. The data can be read from the prints on the bottles. So it is not tap water, but the data for tap water is similar as the companies often use similar sources for their water.