India’s rich splash out as luxury water becomes latest status symbol

At an Indian gourmet food store, Avanti Mehta is organising a blind tasting of drinks sourced from France, Italy and India. No, this is not wine, it is water.Participants use tiny shot glasses to check the minerality, carbonation and salinity in samples of Evian from the French Alps, Perrier from southern France, San Pellegrino from Italy and India’s Aava from the foothills of the Aravalli mountains.“They will all taste different … you should be choosing a water that can give you some sort of nutritional value,” said the 32-year-old who calls herself India’s youngest water sommelier, a term usually associated with premium wine. Her family owns the Aava mineral water brand.Premium water is a US$400 million business in the world’s most populous nation and is growing bigger as its wealthy see it as a new status symbol that fits in with a spreading wellness craze.Premium Indian mineral water costs around US$1 for a one-litre (34oz) bottle, while imported brands are upwards of US$3, or 15 times the price of the country’s lowest-priced basic bottled water.Workers arrange bottles filled with natural water on a conveyor at Tata’s bottling plant in Himachal Pradesh on October 16. Photo: ReutersClean water is a privilege in the country of 1.4 billion people where researchers say 70 per cent of the groundwater is contaminated. Tap water remains unfit to drink, and 16 people died in Indore city after consuming contaminated tap water in December.