Wine sommeliers? Old news. Water sommeliers? They're the new hotness. We last spoke with Martin Riese 12 years ago, when he launched LA's first (we think) water tasting menu at Ray's and Stark Bar, the indoor/outdoor restaurant between LACMA's two main pavilions. The water advocate and educator is poised to launch his water menu at Gwen, Curtis Stone's Hollywood restaurant and butcher shop. During the last decade, what's changed in the world of high-end water? We figured Riese would know.
KCRW: How did you become so interested in water? And how has this interest sustained itself for so many years?
Martin Riese: It started when I was a child. I was just fascinated [during] vacations with my parents to taste different tap waters all over Europe. It was just fascinating that water had taste. It was not about hydration. It was really about taste.
We talked 12 years ago, when I pretty much came to the United States. I was brand new here and I started the first water menu at Ray's and Stark Bar [at LACMA]. A lot of people thought, "This is crazy. What is he talking about?" And now, 12 years later, I've been pretty much on every big news channel you can imagine around the world. I've been on two Netflix shows. One of them is the Bill Nye show [Bill Nye Saves The World]. The other is Down to Earth with Zac Efron. The consumer changed, I think, and they suddenly realized, wow, there is more to discover in water than just water.
What did you and Bill Nye talk about?
We talked about astronaut water and the different types of water you can find here on the planet. For example, purified water, spring water, tap water, and then astronaut water. This is the water the ISS astronauts are drinking on a daily basis. You actually don't want to know what that is, because this is nothing else than recycled shower water and pee and urine. It was not the most appealing water I ever had on my palate.
You drank some?
Oh, absolutely. I'm a water sommelier. I want to taste everything. What's really weird is it was very sweet in the aftertaste and it smelled like a dentist's office. One more reason, I think, for me to not go into outer space.
It's good to know where your boundaries are. So let's start with the difference between purified water, which is everywhere now, and natural spring water.
When I came to the [United] States, I was amazed at the water selection, but not in a positive way. I'm from Germany, and we obviously have over 500 different middle water springs in Germany in our supermarkets. When you go into a regular grocery store, you will find up to 80 different brands. But overall, we have 500 different brands all over Germany.
When you come to the States, you see that 60% of the water being sold is nothing else than tap water. They're using tap water, filtering everything out, [adding] some very small amount of minerals and electrolytes, calling it maybe "electrolyte water." By the way, there's no law here in the United States [about] when a water can be called "electrolyte water." They can add one electrolyte and then call it "electrolyte added for taste." And the consumer thinks, "Oh, I need electrolytes. This is so good for me." He's actually right. You need electrolytes in your water. But the consumer does not know that, in my opinion, they're actually getting scammed at that moment. To buy tap water in a plastic bottle, that's, for me, just crazy.
When you do water tastings, what are the components of water that you want people to learn to recognize?
I look at spring waters, or mineral waters. That means they're coming from mother nature, and the waters are enriched with all the electrolytes and minerals by nature. We all know the water cycle. We learned it at one point in school. Water comes from the ocean, evaporates, clouds are created. So this water comes down as rain and now I'm getting excited. The moment the water hits the ground, stuff leeches out of the stone layers. For example, calcium, magnesium, potassium, all these amazing minerals, and these minerals give water a taste.
Do some of these minerals affect the water in a way that it also gives texture?
Absolutely. I had a water from Australia with a TDS — TDS stands for Total Dissolved Solids — of 1,300. To give you an idea of what TDS ranges are, Smartwater, for example, which a lot of people are buying for the electrolyte level, has a TDS of 20. There's barely anything in there because it's distilled. It's part of tap water. That is what vapor distilling means. You're boiling up tap [water], collecting the steam, adding some electrolytes back and that's it.
Then, for example, Fiji water, which comes from an artesian spring source in the Fiji Islands has a TDS of 222. So way more electrolytes already dissolved because it comes from nature.
Then this Australian brand, it's called Three Bays, has a mind blowing TDS of 1,300. It's literally thick. You think you have olive oil on your palate. It's unbelievable.
Do more minerals mean more salinity?
Yeah, it depends on the minerals. When you have a water with a high sodium content, like a Vichy Catalan from Spain, yes, it's very salty, the aftertaste. That can be fun to pair with your barbecue in the summertime. Vichy Catalan by itself is so salty. But when you have a nice juicy burger right next to it or a steak, it's suddenly a great water that can actually hold up to the experience. The Vichy Catalan would be way too heavy for sushi. Way too strong, way too salty. You'd need a water that is super smooth on the palate, maybe a Saratoga Spring Water from here in the United States. That's a great water for sushi because there's just the TDS of 39. It doesn't have so much salt dissolved. Therefore, it's very light on the palate. It really depends on what you want to do. There is no best water.
If we were to have a water tasting, and we were going to taste four waters, what would you start us off with? And what would we be looking for in that water?
First of all, before we're doing this, we need to get four different brands and do not chill them down. That's very, very important. I know a lot of Americans think water needs to be on ice with a lemon slice on it. That's how every restaurant serves your water. But let's be honest, when you chill a beverage completely down and you start to drink this, you're numbing up your palate. So when I'm tasting waters, I never have them iced. They're all at room temperature. I never put a lemon slice into my waters because I will literally kill all the flavors of the water with this extremely acidic lemon or lime slice.
Are we drinking carbonated mineral water or still mineral water when we're doing a tasting?
When I have four [waters to taste], I will do two still and two sparkling. I will choose a low mineral content still and then a high mineral content still. In the next flight, I will do exactly the same with sparkling, a low mineral content sparkling water with a high mineral content sparkling water, as an opposite. Then, you will definitely see the difference.
When somebody tries to have, let's say a Saratoga sparkling versus a Gerolsteiner sparkling, trust me, there's a big taste difference. Because the minerality from 41 TDS of Saratoga versus 2,500 of Gerolsteiner is night and day on the palate. And everybody can get it. It's not that I have a sophisticated palate, everybody can taste these extremes in water.
Do you find that people's preferences are all over the map, as they are with wine? Or do people settle into defined places, like the majority of people are going to like X water, and just a few people are going to like Y water?
I do a lot of tastings. Once per month, I'm doing a virtual water tasting class, online over Zoom. Then, obviously in the restaurants. Now, I'm starting my water menu at Gwen for Curtis Stone. This is launching at the end of this month. It's been fascinating how diverse the palates of Americans are. When I asked after my class, and we have 40 to 50 people in my classes, "What is your favorite water?" They're literally all over the place. And you can tell. Water is a personal preference. It's the same with cars. It's the same with wine. There is no best. The best water is the water you will like the most.
Do you notice that European tastes are more predictable?
It's kind of what you grew up with. That's sometimes why tap waters win over bottled water in some competitions. The palate is used to tap water, so for [some people], that is the taste of water. It doesn't mean that this is now superior in taste. When a water is highly chlorinated, I don't consider that good water. But sometimes, people prefer the taste of this chlorinated water because they're used to it. They think that is the taste of water. It's the same with other products.
At Ray's & Stark Bar, we had incredibly good butter, back in the day. People asked me, "What is this?" I told them, "This is butter." And they're like, "No, that's not butter. That's something else. Butter tastes totally different." It's really interesting to me. That's the real taste of butter. This is the fun stuff. People are used to certain taste profiles, so they think that something is better when it fits their taste profile. It's very, very unique.
The European market runs on a higher minerality content and on sparkling waters, especially in Germany. It's very interesting. I think it has something to do with our spa and bath towns. For hundreds of years, people are going to the spa towns, by recommendation of their regular doctors. We're not talking about holistic doctors here. [These are] normal schooled doctors recommending that people go to the spas and treat themselves on the healing powers of certain waters. That concept is completely forgotten in America. It's very interesting because you're not even allowed to talk about health benefits due to minerality in water.
I had a big discussion with a nutritionist, because she called me out in a magazine when the Netflix show came out with Zac Efron, and said, "Martin, you talked about the healing power of water, that certain waters could be almost like medicine. This is so wrong, what you're saying. In the end, it's water. There is no benefit besides hydration." I told her, "Maybe you don't know, but there are over 60 bottled water brands in Germany falling under the medication law. Their medication numbers are printed on each bottle. We're not talking about adding something on it. No, these are bottled waters from nature but they have such unique mineral compositions, that they actually have an impact. Doctors and the government agreed that these are medications and not just bottled waters.
By taste, are you able to determine if a company is adding CO2 to their water to make it bubbly?
No, and I can tell you why. Because even naturally occurring sparkling waters, they're adding [bubbles] artificially to it. For example, a Vichy Catalan, Gerolsteiner, which is naturally carbonated, that does not mean they're leaving the carbonation in there when they're bottling it. Because when you shake a bottle of carbonated water, the carbonation will disappear at one point. So during the process of bottling these waters, the carbonation will disappear as well. So what these companies are doing, they are taking the water from the spring source when it's carbonated, they're extracting the carbonation, putting it in a CO2 tank, bottling this still version and then building it back up with a natural CO2 that they just captured from the spring source.
Wow, that's fascinating.
Yeah, and then it's called natural carbonated waters versus other brands, where it's a still source. Like Evian, for example, just launched their sparkling version. Evian comes from Évian-les-Bains, it's a city in France. It's a still spa water and now they're artificially adding the carbonation to it.
The only thing that I think is different between an artificially sparkling water and naturally carbonated water, even when it's artificially added on after a while, is that the water, when it's naturally carbonated, has already been used to the C02. It's kind of like champagne. The second fermentation happens in the bottle so the carbonation level holds longer in the bottle than maybe a cheap Prosecco, which is just a wine and they're adding C02 to it artificially. I see the same [with water.] The carbonation in the glass holds longer the bubbles with naturally carbonated waters versus with added on carbonated waters. But from a taste perspective, it's very, very hard to distinguish that. It's almost impossible.
After hearing this conversation, if someone wants to have a water tasting at their home, is there a way to sip it? Do you clear your palate in between waters? What should we do?
It's very similar to wine tastings. I use wine glasses because they're designed to taste everything out of a wine. Don't do it from plastic [or] glass or something. Have a nice stemware glass in front of you to give the same respect that you're giving to wine to water. That's the whole idea, for me. It's not just about being fancy. I want to bring value back to water. Because the more we know about water, the better it is. When you think that 2.2 million people here in America don't even have access to clean, safe drinking water, I think we need to change that.
So let's all focus a little bit more on water, how important water is, so we engage differently with water. Because let's face it, without it, nobody would be on this planet. We should honor this on a daily basis. Use wine glasses. I would not recommend you clean your palate. Because you want to see the difference between water A, B, C, and D. Start with low, no carbonation, low TDS [water] and build your way up. Then you do the same with sparkling.