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Food Kuwait Personal Reviews

The Ultimate Water Review

Well this post was going to be the ultimate water review but after drinking around 2 liters of water I threw in the towel. Other than the fact that I think I overdosed on water, they all started tasting the same after the third bottle. BUT, it didn’t go all to waste. I was able to answer the most important question… Does a KD5 bottle of water taste better than a 100fils bottle?

I picked up my bottles of water from four different sources, Dean & Deluca, Carrefour, Sultan Center Souk Sharq and Sultan Center Salmiya and I paid a total of KD17.330 for 19 bottles of water. I actually spent the bulk of that at Dean & Deluca purchasing 4 bottles of water which came out to KD11. I’ve listed all the bottles below with their prices but the KD5 bottle I will be reviewing is the one I got from Dean & Deluca called 10 Thousand BC. This is what it says on the back of the bottle:

Locked in an icy vault for over 10,000 years, this water comes from the remote and sheltered Coastal Glacier Range, that literally vibrates with the rich fragrance of health and vitality. Experience the pure, natural taste captured in 10 THOUSAND BC.

The competition? Our very own locally produced Al Rawdatain. It’s my favorite water and I like the brand a lot probably because it reminds me of my childhood. So how was it going to do against the water that comes from the beautiful coastal glacier range of British Columbia, Canada? Not very good.

You can take what I am about to say with a grain of salt since I am no water expert but the 10 Thousand BC water did taste better. I really felt like I was drinking snow, it smelled like snow and tasted like snow. Nat thinks I am losing it but I still have a bit of water left in the bottle (saving it for a special occasion like when Prince Charles comes over) to prove her wrong. The bottle looks great and the story behind the water is breathtaking. Al Rawdatain on the other hand tasted pretty normal but at 60fils its over 500 times cheaper. The Al Rawdatain water also came in a plastic bottle which although not as pretty as the 10 Thousand BC glass bottle can at least handle a fall without breaking.

So 10 Thousand BC tasted better but seriously who would buy a KD5 bottle of water to drink regularly? It’s actually one of the most expensive bottles of water in the world. I mean KD5 is an affordable luxury, anyone can afford it if they want to try it but does anyone drink it casually?

Check out the list of prices below.

10 Thousand BC KD4.950
Iskilde KD2.950
Evian Special Edition KD2.000
Icelandic Glacial KD1.950
Voss Still KD1.250
Vio KD0.490
Volvic KD0.390
Highland Spring KD0.340
Ultra KD0.175
Fiji KD1.150
Rim KD0.150
Bambini KD0.120
Al Rawdatain KD0.060
Aquafina KD0.055
Arwa KD0.055
Nestle KD0.050

Extra:
Voss Sparkling: KD0.750
Evian regular: KD0.400
Aquafina 300ml: KD0.050

Note: Please don’t take this review seriously, it’s just a bit of fun.

83 replies on “The Ultimate Water Review”

I tried this before with Evian Rawdatain and Abraj for some reason Evian felt smother when drinking. Then Abraj followed by rawdatain felt little more acidic and at that time had a weird taste like oil (bad packing maybe) also volvic was good

Ed: If sodium levels are interesting to know I can post it. The 10 Thousand BC has 0mg/L of Sodium. According to the website its because the water doesn’t get filtered in the ground like spring water and other regular water.

I love this review!
Voss is my second best, my favourite remains Abraj.
Evian is just too minerally for my taste.
AlRawdatain always seems to taste like the bottle’s plastic to me.

Glass bottles win over plastics ones since plastic ones can somehow get some weird substances into the water.

I prefer volvic over them all, try drinking volvic for a whole week then drink one bottle of alrawdatain, you will know what i mean.

hey mark, have u done this kind of review to coffee…like from nestle to watever coffee we got here in kuwait???;-)

anyhoooo i liked this H2O review…

Frankom: Aquafina is tap water. I have actually watched a news segment about aquafina on CNN about 2 years ago.

And guys, 175 fils for a bottle of Ultra??? Damn you guys are ripped off lol
Its sold for an equivalent of 50 fils over here! You’re paying 350% of its price lol!

Coming to think of it, could that be the price with the other more expensive brands?

Water (in it’s purest form) is colorless, tasteless and odorless.
Anything that doesn’t fit the above criteria is:
– not pure water as it depends on the type of additives in the water (whether it’s minerals or additives).
– Marketing hype.
You may as well compare it to a bottle of lemonade and say that it’s nice and tangy.

Well I have gone through lot of reviews on the net, but never a review on Bottled-Water. It really takes some effort to do it. Though you might not be atechnical expert but it does makes me feel good that people like you exist.
As far as bottled-water for me is concerned, the taste rearly bothers me. Though at time I buy Arwa water bottle because of its good shape.

wow, i didn’t think anyone cared about a water review. what I am going to do tonight is try all the waters, I will list under each if any of them had a strange taste (like ABC water always does) and also details like sodium levels. What else would you guys like to know?

I wanna know your top 5 .. and which one tasted almost same as 10 Thousand BC and please give us a note the place of each item u bought from .. thanks .

Your tests should be performed blindly in order not to have any bias toward preferred or expensive brands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_experiment

You need someone to help you with this, like marking identical glasses with numbers, each corresponding to a brand. Record your review as you go along, and when you are done with all of them, match your reviews with the brands.

it does say on the label something like “natural mineral water” which is obviously natural, anything like “bottled” or technically anything besides “natural” or “mineral” is purified water; they always brag about it being natural.

Mark, maybe you should talk about the carbon footprint of the water too. The carbon spent in transporting a bottle from Al Rawdatain to your house is one thing. A bottle of 10 Thousand BC, or a Fiji is a whole other ball game…

The best water is the Kuwait Tap Water once it comes directly from the Govt.network & not stagnated in the Water tank.I have connected my house directly to the system after the meter !! No rooftop tank.It is pure desalinated water with enough natural brakish water added to make it drinkable. I usually also boil it before botteling it for the fridge to get rid of the chlorine parts. It is the absolute sientifically best drinking water in Kuwait.
Do not help adding more waste to the system through discarded plastics.

My favorite since being in Kuwait has always been Sohat.

I’ll have to ask him again why but my husband made a fuss about me getting a bottle of arwa from burgerking once. He had me throw it out, he says it’s dangerous? :/

Hey Mark, again really like your water review!
It made me look at water differently, I will only drink natural water now. How do I find out if its really natural? is there a mark on the labels?

Sorry to burst your bubble…

But I can get water maybe before 10,000 BC FOR FREE.

I.e. ZamZam water

It is far more heatlhy, cheap, and older than this sham.

“10 Thousand BC KD4.950” what the F**K is that Price! are you trying to say me that Water is more costlier than a XXL KFC Meal ! ! !

I can summarize the full report/Paragraph to the following:
1. Botteled water has different categories (Local, Regional, Premier)

2. ALL local water bottles (Kuwaiti) are from the same source which is the ministry of electricity and water and ALL of them are PURIFIED water which mean they are simply ozone treated and then they add the remaining minerals (To their taste) (i.e. Aquafina, Arwa, Aqua gulf, Abraj)

3. Regional Water are either from the gulf countries, mainly UAE, KSA and Oman and MOSTLY are similar to the local ones OR even WORSE (Sorry to say that but that’s the truth, also to be fair some of them are treating it good) to be fair also, some are from deep wells, but you wouldn’t know how was is treated and bottled!! (Masafi, Hana, others)… The second region is Lebanon and the levant area, that area has good water (Simply because they have rivers and mountains, and there are good products (freshing products), but my concern would be botteling, Quality Assurance, and certifications.

4. The Last Category is the Premier products.. and due to the fact that the Kuwaiti market is rather small and the customers who are loyal to this category is small, you don’t find many products available in Kuwait in this category (due to it’s price) (since the distrubitors can’t afford to run their operation with low volumes)….Saying that, in this category, you can rely on it’s quality and botteling (Although some glitches could happen every several years, similar to what happend almost 10 years ago with Perrier when they’ve found some traces of gasoline in it) … In this category the MOST Famous brand is Evian, which could be found in everywhere in the world, but in my openion it’s reputation is much bigger than it’s taste and flavour !!!!!! and me personaly I would prefer Volvic on it (Although both products are from the same parent company which are DENON)… The other player in Kuwait is Volvic, which is also french and has a nice tase and relatively cheaper than Evian (with a better taste)…. The Last player in Kuwait I consider is Highland Spring (Scottish product), Low Sodium, the only certified Organic product and as you can see from the table on top, it’s the cheapest of the premier products in Kuwait (I do love their Still and Sparkling taste, very fresh and not heavy) and mostly you can find it in every Starbucks and British Airways aircraft 🙂

5. All the others premier products, do carry the same quality and bottleing assurance, but the problem is (Which happened to me several times), once you like a product and start to get used to it, you don’t find it anymore!!!! and it’s much more expensive than the main 3 players in Kuwait… Saying that, it’s always nice to buy a new bottle and try a different taste every know and then…..

I hope my “long comment” would benefit all of you here…. I do hope all of you do enjoy drinking water the same way I do 🙂

Very good review!
We need to come up with a list of best good quality water and good price that is available in Kuwait.

Mark– any chance of another water update post since it’s almost
Summer and we have a few new water brands since 2010. I’m interested In what water I can buy for my home machine? The big 17 litre bottles? Which brands come in those sizes and most importantly which have the lowest sodium ? No point drinking a bottle with 4 times more salt that the body actually is supposed to have in a day- like aquafina!

Are you f%#%ing kidding me?
of course, there are plenty of water fans =D
plus i like the way you photograph, its cool its just make you feel you wanna drink all of that since your photographing them while the fog is covering the bottles and they look extremely cold but not icy LOL

Hi Mark – I would like to see you list the amount of Nitrates in the bottled water – several years ago, my family owned a restaurant (in the US) that used fresh well-water, and because of the amount of nitrates in the water, we had to put a warning out for pregnant women and nursing mothers not to drink our “regular” water because of the nitrate level. I have noticed that Rawdatain has a high level of nitrates, so my hubby and I won’t buy it, just as a precaution…

Hello, I think all the waters that you have tasted are good and within the WHO guidelines of botelled drinking water. Natural spring waters are much more inconsistent in quality then the manufactured ones. So dont worry drink anyone of them that you and your pocket likes.

Hello, Can someone give me the phone numbers of nestle kuwait so i can order to home?
Thankkk youu

This review rocked! Well… 10,000 BC? First time i actually knew that this water brand actually existed.. but for a price tag of 5 KD i think i’ll stick with normal 60 fls water xD

I searched everywhere and couldn’t get Rim from any store here in Kuwait. Kindly tell me the store name.

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