cheapest mineral water store brands

One particularity about Europe is that people enjoy all kinds of brands of water, and it is often carbonated or sparkling (in North America it’s "still" water). I don't care much about brands, I just want sparkling water and I want it at the lowest price.

Varianta în limba română pe FaṭăCarte Meta Zamolxis.

• I compare 3 sparkling mineral water store brands in Romania.

In my younger years, I remember that people used to drink their wine with some kind of soda (aka “sifon”), which was carbonated water. People had a special kind of bottle, which one could get refilled in special stations in the neighbourhood. They’d call this by the misnomer spritz.

Personally, I like wine to be wine and water to be water, I don’t like to mix them. I’ve been enjoying this wine all by itself and I wouldn’t have it any other way, even though you may have noticed in that photo one of them “sparkling mineral waters” right next to the wine. And it’s not the first time: you can see a bottle of Borsec next to socata but that was a syrup meant to be mixed with water.

I also drink significant quantities of “regular” or “still” (Ro: “plata”) water, and that one I want as pure as possible (as an update, I measured tap water near Scala in Bucharest at EC 270 or 135 ppm).

Borsec has a strong branding, “the queen of mineral waters”, but I doubt that anyone would be able to identify it in a blind test, as long as it’s paired with other waters with similar CO₂^- (H₂CO₃) content. However, I bought it not necessarily because of the taste, but rather because in Toronto you don’t have much choice in this kind of water – it was either this or “Perla Harghitei”, which is similar but much more carbonated.

It seems that a lot of standardization took place in 2016 when a law was passed to “recognize” the existing brands and sources. I’m including the links below FYI.

I found that most supermarkets will sell you carbonated water at around 2 RON / 2L, plus the required 0.5 SGR “guarantee” for the plastic bottle. Certain supermarkets may even go a little lower than 2 RON if you use their discount card. Of the above, I prefer the VDR as it is not as carbonated as Perla Covasnei (which almost explodes) and it’s also slightly cheaper than the one from Profi.

Here’s what they disclose on the label:

• Proxi: CO₂ min 2500 mg/L, sursa de foraj medie adancime, F9 MOSTISTEA
• VDR: Ca²⁺ 30,54 mg/l, Na⁺ 83,96, Mg²⁺ 22,31, SO₄^2- 4,12, K⁺ 3,09, CO₂ min 2500, reziduu sec la 180^oC 450, HCO₃^- 567,3 (SNAM 2021/26.04.2024), sursa F1 SNAM loc Tg Secuiesc
• Perla Covasnei: SO₄^2- 13,82, Ca²⁺ 101,06, Mg²⁺ 13,60, reziduu sec la 180^oC 300, ρ^-1=σ 532, NO₂ <0,048, HCO₃^- 305, CO₂ min 3500, FH73 loc Catalina

PC (the last one) is “strongly carbonated” and nearly explodes when opened. It lets off a large quantity of CO2 before I have a chance to drink it and that’s a waste in my eyes, so I won’t be buying it anymore. Also, its contents are not that great. As long as I can find more details at SNAM or NAMR below, I might continue with Profi/Proxi as well.

Other brands may be similarly cheap at Carrefour, Auchan and others, but they’re not that close to me right now.

Sources / More info: am-lista, anrm22/2016, snam, namr

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