Bonaqua....

After spending the past several weeks cavorting around Europe, I have gotten used to drinking bottled water but it is really unnecessary to do so since the tap water is largely clean and healthy. However, the variety and tastes of those bottled waters are kind of interesting, particularly in Italy where the average consumption of bottled water is the highest in Europe at 155 liters per capita. So, water is important to the Italians. As we know, Italy has a history of water management when the Romans moved fresh water across great distances through the use of canals and aqueducts so that their empire's cities had a constant supply of fresh clean water available to its residents.



and they disposed of waste water by building sanitary sewage disposal systems in their cities...



Some of these ancient contraptions are still is use today such as the one pictured above in Rome. And public toilets were widely available since they figured out that sewage management was preferable to its citizens defecating and urinating publicly on the streets.



Public toilets were a place to go to sit and enjoy taking a dump and chatting with your friends. Several years ago, when I was in Ephesus Turkey, I was quite impressed that Romans used to send their servants down to the toilet to warm the seat before they themselves showed up for business. Times have changed!

But I digress. Back to drinking water....



San Pellegrino (Nestle), a water produced north of Milan, near where we stayed, is one of those we enjoyed.

The town of San Pellegrino in the mountains north of Milan was first made famous by quenching the thirst of Leonardo da Vinci.

So, I guess I have good company with Leonardo in my appreciation of the fine waters from there.

I find most refreshing, the bubbly kind, in Italian- frizzante.

Frizzante is an Italian wine term for semi-sparkling wine (as opposed to Spumante, which is generally used for fully sparkling wines). Frizzante wines generally owe their bubbles to a partial second fermentation in tank, a sort of interrupted Charmat process sparkling wine.

On a hot day, I find the 'frizzante' style most refreshing particularly since my wig and 18th century dress can be quite uncomfortably hot.

So it being a quite hot and uncomfortable today here in Hong Kong and unusually clear, purchased a bottle of water. I usually do not buy distilled water since it is... distilled. Although distilled water adds fluids, it does not include any minerals since they are removed in the distilling process. And I refuse to purchase the ubiquitous Watson's Water, a product from one of the companies owned by the evil tycoon, Li Ka-Shing.

Typically, I buy the Bonaqua product produced by fine wholesome all-American company Coca-Cola and named after a natural bottled water in Central Italy. But today I noticed something that I hadn't in the past. And that is that Bonaqua is not mineral water but MINERALIZED water. So what the heck is this 'mineralized' water?



Ordinary Gweilo wrote about this product several years ago since he was somewhat concerned about drinking the the tap water that comes from rivers in Guangdong. How else is China going to dispose its industrial pollutants other than to feed it directly into the populace through its drinking water? Geez, silly ordinary gweilo.

Bonaqua? So, what it is is a distilled water where, theoretically, all these ugly nasty pollutants are removed along with all the healthy minerals that are naturally occurring and then adding back just those healthy minerals to the product. A solution perfect for Hong Kong people, fake natural mineral water!