Aqua vitae Osaka style
Posted by ampontan on Tuesday, August 23, 2011
IF YOU had trouble wrapping your head around the concept of “designer jeans”, wait until you read this: The city of Osaka is selling its tap water in PET bottles.
Or this: The water won a Gold Quality Award in the 50th Monde Selection awards this May. Monde Selection describes itself this way:
Founded in 1961, Monde Selection’s mission is to test consumer products and grant them a bronze, silver, gold or grand gold quality award. This quality label, awarded by a totally independent professional jury, offers the consumer and the producer numerous advantages. No less than 2830 products, coming from over 80 different countries, are tested each year.
See, it's true!
It’s the first time any municipality that produces and sells water in PET bottles has won an award. That’s not as surprising as the fact that there are municipalities that turn on the tap and fill bottles to compete with the likes of Evian to begin with. To be sure, the city says the beverage is regular tap water that has been rigorously purified. They launched sales of the product in 2007 to encourage more people to drink tap water, and flog 500 millimeter-bottles for JPY 100 yen ($US 1.30). It’s sold under the name of Honmaya, which means “It’s true” in the Kansai dialect, and it’s available in convenience stores and anywhere finer beverages are sold.
If you had trouble wrapping your head around that concept, try this one: They’ve sold well over a million bottles in four years. It’s not surprising at all that the city is thrilled to receive international recognition of the safety and taste of its water. Now that it has legitimate cachet, they’ll probably start plugging it as Gold Label H2O. Honmaya!
Not so long ago, they used to warn travelers to certain countries not to drink the water. They don’t have to worry about that in Osaka at all.
Speaking of which, teachers and dance folk might enjoy this video presenting a new technique for bilingual dance instruction in English and Chinese. Heck, I’d study Chinese with that schoolmarm, and bring her anything she wanted to drink in lieu of apples.
Designer Water Launches Custom Label Bottled Water Business in Metroplex said
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