I Was a Judge at the Academy Awards of Water and Drank 65 Glasses on Stage

In one hyper-hydrated day, I tasted and judged 65 entries at the world’s largest water competition.

I

look out over the table and understand how a competitive swimmer must feel the moment before diving into an Olympic-size pool.

In front of me sit 24 glasses of water, each from a different municipal utility. My job is to taste them all, rating the tap waters on multiple attributes. And I’ll be doing this while a crowd watches my every sip and swirl.

Although I’ve been drinking water all my life, I can’t say I’m particularly qualified to be a judge at the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting competition, which calls itself the Academy Awards of Water. I don’t know what to expect other than this: I’m pretty sure I will stay hydrated.

The annual competition is held in a historic West Virginia spa town where George Washington once bathed, the Hollywood of H2O, if you will. The free annual event attracts several hundred spectators, a combination of water industry competitors, out-of-town visitors, and locals eager to sample the liquids. At night’s end comes the Water Rush, a mad scramble to grab a souvenir, like a rare bottle of something like Antipodes, an award-winner from New Zealand.

Over its 35 years, the competition has attracted thousands of entrants, including honorees from Bosnia, Taiwan, and Ecuador. Dozens of North American cities have entered their tap water. Over the years, the Clearbrook Waterworks District in British Columbia has taken home the crown several times.

Winners take the prize seriously, often redesigning their labels to highlight their Berkeley Springs triumph. All this makes me wonder what I’m doing here, tasked to sample 65 waters in four categories: municipal, non-carbonated, purified, and sparkling. I was invited after I wrote a short article previewing the event, not because I had any expertise.

Today I’m feeling very much a fish out of water. But my new friend Mark Kraham, a veteran judge of 28 years, has taken me under his wing, like an upperclassman helping a confused freshman on the first day of school. The toughest category is going to be purified, he tells me.

These liquids are stripped of chemicals and minerals, which removes most of their distinctive taste, he says. Municipal and spring will be easier. Then our reward will come in the last round, sparkling. “That’s like dessert.”

But I remain baffled about the entire event. “People are going to watch us drink water?” I ask, finally beginning to understand what I had volunteered to do.

Mark smiles. “And next week, they’re going to come to watch paint dry.”

My training began earlier that afternoon in a half-hour crash course for the 10 judges. Our instructor, Arthur von Wiesenberger, the contest’s “Water Master” for the past 35 years, has written books on bottled water and consulted for companies like Evian.

Von Wiesenberger grew up in Europe and became fascinated with the local bottled water he encountered as he traveled with his parents. His all-time favorite, he told me, was a mildly sparkling water from France called Badoit.

But whatever the water, the principles of tasting remain the same, he said. “You’ve all been tasting water on a subconscious level. What we try and do is bring that to a conscious level.”

We were going to rate entries on appearance, odor, mouthfeel, taste, and aftertaste. And then we’d have to give our overall impression using a 14-level grading system created by a University of California-Berkeley professor.

The lowest rating, number one, is described as: “The water has a terrible, strong taste and I can’t stand it in my mouth.” Number four states that “I would only drink it in a serious emergency,” which made me wonder: What kind of emergency?

Finally, at the other end comes number 14: “I would be happy to have it for my everyday drinking water.”

Like a dripping faucet, the instructions began to overwhelm me. I still wasn’t quite clear how to sort out a simple sip. But it was too late to back out. It was time for a practice round with three unmarked glasses to see if I was judge-worthy.

I took a hesitant swallow from the first glass. It tasted like … water. Nothing special, but nothing memorable either. The second glass was a little different. A bit cleaner, perhaps? I couldn’t quite tell, but they definitely weren’t the same.

Then I sipped the third. It felt like a train wreck in my mouth, fizzy and funky, a taste that reminded me of filtered bathwater. I almost spit it out.

We rated each and readied for von Wiesenberger’s question. Which one do we prefer?

No one voted for the first glass, and he looked pleased. It had been tap water.

“What about the second one?” I hesitantly raised my hand, and another judge joined me. We had voted for a purified water. Everybody else chose the third, a sparkling mineral water.

This confirmed that I had unsophisticated taste, but von Wiesenberger didn’t mind. I had proven I could detect a difference between the three. Not everyone does, he said. “Sometimes someone has a bad cold or palate, and they can’t taste anything. We tell them they should sit it out.”

But I had passed, and he handed me a diploma declaring me a certified water taster.

An hour later, I put my new credential to use, taking to the stage for round one of tasting: 24 glasses of municipal water.

Von Wiesenberger and the contest producer Jill Klein Rone look us over and in unison give their command: “Let the waters flow!”

The ballroom lights glare down, making the rows of glasses shimmer like crystal trophies. Following von Wiesenberger suggestion, I taste the first four entries and choose a favorite. That would become my standard for the others. As I work through the glasses, some begin to stand out. The best, I decide, is the next to last. Number 23 has everything I want in water.

As I sip, von Wiesenberger and Rone regale the crowd like play-by-play announcers at the Westminster Dog Show, sharing water trivia and a few bad jokes. Meanwhile, many in the crowd leave their seats, lining up at tasting tables to sample the same liquids we are rating.

I tune them out, focusing on the waters, searching for distinctions that I never realized were there. Oddly enough, the more I sample, the thirstier I become. Von Wiesenberger had warned me: Constant sipping washes away saliva.

After the second round, which features purified water, we take a break, allowing time to spiff up for the black-tie optional finale.

When we return to the stage, things begin smoothly. I work my way through the purified entries, and am ready for dessert. But halfway through the sparkling water round, disaster strikes—an actual emergency, but perhaps not the one that had been anticipated in the ranking scale.

I need to use the bathroom.

Oddly enough, this was something von Wiesenberger never covered. I consider soldiering through, but the line of waters left to sample is too daunting. I quietly exit the stage, sprinting to the restrooms in the back of the hall, only to find three children lined up ahead of me. I tap my foot and briefly consider pulling rank and pushing my way to the front. But here, on the gala night of the Academy Awards of Water, it felt like conduct unbecoming of a judge.

Instead, I hustle up the back steps to my hotel room.

By the time I return to the stage, my fellow judges are mostly finished. I rush through the final glasses and make my picks. Thirty minutes later, the results are announced.

Gold medal municipal honors go to Emporia, Kansas. My favorite—delicious number 23 from Port Severn, Ontario—doesn’t even place. Theoni Natural from Greece wins non-carbonated; Gaithersburg, Maryland’s DrinkMore Water takes purified; and Wilderness Mountain Water of Bland, Virginia, claims sparkling bragging rights. (While Wilderness isn’t widely distributed, it’s still easy to taste: The company also bottles some waters for the trendy national brand Liquid Death.)

To my great relief, no loud protests erupt from the floor. With 10 judges, I reason, even if my choices had been outliers, they could be dismissed as mere statistical noise. Bottomline: I hadn’t destroyed the integrity of the world’s premier international water tasting.

The next morning, I brushed my teeth and lingered over a glass of water. It tasted fresh and smooth. My tasting skills hadn’t disappeared overnight.

Before leaving, I stopped by Berkeley Springs State Park, located next door to the host hotel. It has baths and a public faucet offering free fill-ups of the city’s celebrated water, which had taken fifth place in the municipal category the previous night.

I topped off a water bottle and returned to my car, confident in one thing: I wasn’t going to get thirsty on the drive home.