Here’s a question you may not have considered: Does water have a flavor?
You may think water’s ideal taste is neutral — and if you notice, say, an earthy aroma, you might be concerned. But, according to Susheera Pochiraju, there’s not necessarily any reason to panic.
Pochiraju, a water engineer, works with cities to educate people about the natural flavor of tap water.
Pochiraju joined The Show to explain how the next time you notice a taste from your tap, think of it like you might think about wine. It may not be toxins — it might just be what Pochiragu calls “terroir.”
Full conversation
SUSHEERA POCHIRAJU: That refers to the characteristic flavor or taste imparted to a beverage by the environment from where the beverage is being produced. So, when it comes to tap water, if it's mountain spring water with less amount of minerals and salt, it kind of tastes clean on your tongue. If the water is, kind of, being taken from far downstream in a watershed, so your river is picking up a bunch of natural salts and minerals along the way, it tastes a little more salty. It could also feel like a bit of metallic if it's groundwater rich in iron or manganese.
So “terroir” when it comes to water is finding these descriptors that help both the public and the water providers understand this is a very natural thing. And it's a very fun activity to do. We do these tasting events all the time with consumers and utility personnel, where we let people taste and come up with the descriptors of how they're feeling.
SAM DINGMAN: Yes, well, let me ask you a little bit about that. Because it's kind of a trope in wine tasting environments for people to say like, “Oh, I taste these things in the wine,” that you might think you wouldn't want to taste in something you're drinking like tobacco or leather. But those are actually very positive descriptors amongst people who take wine very seriously. Do you hear similar things at these water tastings?
POCHIRAJU: Yeah, we hear a range of things, like someone might come and say, “This smells like my grandma's basement.” [LAUGHS] … When it comes to taste perception, a lot of it depends on your own personal experiences. You might really have a good experience as a child drinking this water that smells earthy. So, they will actually see that as a positive thing. While somebody else might drink the same water and say, “Oh, like, I don't know, I'm getting gasoline, plastic.” And usually we do this in panels for a reason. We have like four to five people form a panel.
DINGMAN: And in these tastings, are people tasting water from like a variety of different localities?
POCHIRAJU: Yeah, we bring in waters from different municipalities across the states. And it could be one utility is taking groundwater, one utility is doing river water, reservoir, like bunch of sources.
DINGMAN: And what is the outcome you're hoping for by exposing people to this range of flavors and feelings?
POCHIRAJU: To understand and develop a platform for trust between the water providers and customers. And it's not necessarily a negative thing when you're feeling some kind of flavor in the water. And during the tasting event like that, you're providing both parties an opportunity to interact, for the consumers to ask questions, and understand and get a peek inside the treatment. And on the flip side for the utilities, it's good to know where the community tolerances are.
DINGMAN: I see. So, even if, say, the water tastes particularly salty in a certain community, and there's no danger that the water is unsafe to drink, it might be good for the utility to realize — that's all well and good, but the tolerance level for salty tasting water is just very low. And we should come up with a way of mitigating that.
POCHIRAJU: Right.
DINGMAN: It sounds like the idea here is that if somebody tastes anything beyond just neutral nothingness in the flavor of their water, they might be inclined towards panic. But what you're trying to encourage people to think about is, if you know where that flavor is coming from, and that there's nothing inherently bad about that flavor, you might start to think about your water a little bit more like you think about your wine.
POCHIRAJU: Exactly, yeah. And it gives them an opportunity to associate that with their region, to feel some kind of, you know, even pride in it. Like this is a part of our identity. [LAUGHS[ Yeah, so that, yeah, that's exactly right. And it helps them see tap water in a different way. Like at the end of the day, it's a beverage. So yeah, they can now think of it as this is the natural flavor, like, I'm proud of my water.
DINGMAN: So what should people who are listening to this and maybe thinking to themselves, “Oh, maybe I don't have to be as worried about taste and smell in tap water as I thought I did.” What should people be worried about?
POCHIRAJU: Well, that's a good question. Definitely color. If you see something, you want to check with the provider, and make sure they come in and check your system and make sure everything is OK, do some water-quality testing.
Even for smell and taste, I would say like, you know what your baseline flavor is of your tap water. If it seems really far off from your baseline flavor, it's always good to check. But other than that, unless your utility is communicating about some kind of emergency issue, usually you don't have to be worried about the tap water.
DINGMAN: Last question for you, Susheera. There's obviously a lot of concern in some quarters about the EPA and other institutions like it having resources taken away from them at the moment. Do you find that that has prompted any concern amongst people in the focus groups that you do when it comes to these issues?
POCHIRAJU: When it comes to protecting water quality as is at this point, we have all the regulations in place that will still be followed without any changes. We have regulations at state level and local municipality levels, too, sometimes. Which supersede the federal levels if you need to.
So there is the framework that's already in place. I don't think that's going to be impacted by what is happening currently. Moving forward, looking into more research on what else could be coming our way, what else do we need to be bracing for in the future, those research projects might be impacted. … We don't know how long this is gonna go. But as we stand, with all the regulations that we have in place to keep the water safe, I don't think none of the regulations or the implementation would get impacted.
DINGMAN: All right. Well, Susheera Pochiragu is a principal engineer at Hazen and Sawyer, an engineering firm that focuses on water treatment. Susheera, thank you so much for this conversation.
POCHIRAJU: Thank you, Sam. Thanks for having me.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This interview has been updated to correct the spelling of Susheera Pochiraju's name.
