Drinking water absolutrly has a taste. You're just used to it. Not so if you drink somewhere else.
this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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Your lungs have a smell
The reason we've evolved to tune out whatever taste water may have, is because we need to be able to detect when there's shit in it. Literally. But also anything else non-suitable.
Which is why waters taste slightly different as we never drink distilled water really. Not that it's somehow toxic, but drinking only distilled water when there's no food and then sweating a lot would dehydrate you eventually.
Water does have a flavor. It’s water flavored.
Water does have flavor, depending on the mineral content. I've always had to get used to the taste of the water when I start in a new area.
Rabies is a condition that lets you taste water for it's real flavor
Maybe that's why they used to call it "hydrophobia".
Hydrophobia is still very much the name of one of the symptoms that rabies has.
As in a doctor might write "patient exhibits hydrophobia, rabies suspected" or something. Although most doctors wouldn't ever be in a situation like that, but still.
But we're 60% water so we taste it all the time.
Imagine always having a taste in your mouth.
flavor is an experience created by your brain (or at least, created subjectively internal to an agent if you don't want to accept that conscious experiences are fully explained physically)
what if water really has a flavor but our brains filter it out
so this makes no sense, flavor just is what you experience.
I moved from Nebraska to North Carolina 20 years ago and still haven't adjusted to the nasty taste of chlorinated water. I guess it's better than getting cholera or e. coli.
I once visited Wilmington N.C. in the "off" season (half the price for hotels) and the water was really fucking bad. Not just chlorinated, but sulfurous. Even showering in it felt like it left a kind of residue on your skin.
Different waters taste differently. Tap water taste differs from region to region. Bottled water tastes differently between brands and also compared to tap water. This is also caused by varying amounts of minerals.
If you think your sense of taste works fine, but can not tell taste differences in water, try making direct comparisons. Take some bottled water and some tap water (if it is safe for drinking whereever you live). Then take a sip, focus on the taste. Try making out differences. Repeat a couple of times.
If you still can't make out any differences and you weren't impatient, it might be worth training your sense of taste first, because water does have a flavour.
It's not that the water itself has flavour, but the solution does have some. There's usually minerals in most water. Distilled water being an exception.
Most bottled water is tap water
There is a difference between tap water and water. Tap water is nowhere near pure water.
I could see that water being "neutral" on taste for most people is probably evolutionary. But I'm just speculating.
Water tastes neutral because your taste receptors are constantly exposed to water because it's universally present in and on living tissue. You don't sense things that are constantly there.
Water is neutral in taste the same way that CO is scentless - it is literally too small for the things to pick it up.
Am I weird in that I definitely can taste water?
Tangent, but I remember when I was a kid I would try to explain people that I could "smell" the "air coonditioned air" and everyone was like "what? No you can't, it's just air. It doesn't smell like anything."
I never did figure out what the smell was. I'm guessing it was some kind of chemical; it wasn't a bad smell, though. It smelled like ice cubes (which I know, doesn't make a lot of sense either.)
Anyway, all this to say that a lot of people have very strong senses. (And the other comments about water not being neutral are correct as well!)
Ice cubes do have some smell, now that you mention it. Humans have an amazing ability to smell moisture, which we evolved for being able to find water sources. So your experience with AC could relate to how AC affects the humidity in the air perhaps.
And in context of this thread, smell is one of the largest factors for our experience of flavor. Without a sense of smell, most foods would taste relatively bland.
You've got sensors for acidity and alkalinity, but water is almost never truly neutral, so for sure you can taste that. You can also taste/smell a bunch of other stuff in water, like salt, other minerals, or chemicals like chlorine.
I doubt you're drinking pure water. You're almost definitely tasting all the minerals and junk in the water rather than the water itself.
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In the same way that the sunlight's spectrum (or at least the part of it that reaches the Earth's surface) has the most energy of green wavelengths, which are conveniently in the middle of the light spectrum visible by humans.
I think spit is a better one. Spit tastes fine in our mouths, its always there, youre tasting it right now. Now spit in a cup and drink it immediately. I dry heaved just typing this.
tbh, for me it's more about the texture of it and not so much taste, lmao. something about the bubbles, when you spit, yuck. carbonated spit 😭
Ok, drool into a cup then and try to drink that.
Okay, done. Now what? What's supposed to happen? It just tastes like Papa John's?
This entire conversation is making me dry heave and I have nobody to blame but myself.
I had surgery in my mouth and for months I've had problems with my sense of taste. Water has sometimes tasted bad. FML
Get yourself some sugar free cordial or something, it helps. Get a water filter maybe? They're expensive though
I'm really sensitive to tastes and smells, lots of treated drinking water tastes foul to me
I appreciate the thought and comment.
Every single piece of candy tastes awful, sugar free or regular. Water tasting bad seems to come and go, but whenever it happens all water tastes bad. Tap, softened, filtered, bottled, iced, boiled, everything. Even my own spit can taste bad.
Some things are getting better though, very few things taste metallic anymore. Maybe just honey. But honestly this has been going on for so long that I don't even enjoy eating and as of a month or so ago I've quit looking for foods that taste good. I've just been sticking with what tastes the least bad. 😮💨
Thanks though.
I'm curious what foods taste least bad to you? Also, did the surgery involve your tongue in some way?
Water has a flavor. It has different flavors, depending on how clean it is, too. At least it does for me…
It depends on the color of the la Croix can
And not just that, the different mineral compositions give it a different flavor too. Sometimes when traveling here in Germany, I‘m filling my water bottle with regional tap water and often I‘m glad how good the tap water at home tastes compared to what you can get in other regions.
In the other regions defense, I'm sure they might say the same about your water simply because it's different.
Unless you're talking well water, that stuff can have a gnarly Sulfur smell to it, though still safe. Can't seem to get used to that kinda smell though lol
Water quality varies quite a bit. The water in Seattle is significantly better than the water in Florida, for example.
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Right. But are you tasting the water or the junk in the water?
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My friend is going through chemo treatment, which is wrecking their tastebuds in various ways, and they told me after each infusion they can’t stand the “texture” of water for a few days. Thankfully, it’s also wrecking their cancer!
Are they pissing lots of the cancer out?
Yes!
True. Nothing has innate taste. So the taste of water is whatever we needed it to be.
Could be the other way, our brains nerfing the incredible flavour so we don't all die of hyperhydration
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