Wondering About Water: A Taste Test of Central Ohio’s Water

Nikhil Ravilla, Staff Writer

Water is one of the few universal things across humanity, yet it varies immensely depending on various factors; the most obvious is location, but also other less obvious things, such as socioeconomic position, impact the quality of drinking water available to people. Due to this enigma before me, I decided to evaluate water across Central Ohio by trying—and forcing a bunch of other people to try—an assortment of water to determine which place had the best. (Brief disclaimer: this story is in no way meant to be scientific, and your results, if you were to conduct something similar, may greatly vary.) 

5. Hilliard: Everyone I spoke with agreed that this water was simply abominable, and I concur. Some of the ways in which Hilliard’s water was referred to include “liquefied cardboard and mildew” and “melted silica”; one of my friends even claimed it gave them food poisoning. Enough said.

4. Westerville: This water had a strange aftertaste that was described as “tangy” and “metallic.” Not as bad as Hilliard water, but not good either. Someone called this water “spicy,” which honestly disappointed me more than the water itself, which is quite an accomplishment if I do say so myself.

3/2/1. German Village, Powell, Dublin: The differences between these waters were simply too negligible to ascertain which one was the best (one of my friends claimed that German Village water was the worst water, but they’re just wrong, plain and simple, so I don’t care :)) That being said, I’d personally say that German Village water wasn’t as good as the Powell and Dublin ones, but most other people had more neutral thoughts regarding it.