Americans spend a small fortune—nearly $100 billion a year, in response to some sources—on bottled water. And whereas it’s widespread to disgrace folks for not ingesting from the faucet, it’s arguably not one hundred pc dangerous. Drinking bottled water is way more healthy than ingesting juice or soda (or, actually, the rest), and the style of faucet water can typically be off-putting, necessitating an alternate. And faucet water is a few cities is unclean and even dangerous.

Then there’s mineral water, which not less than one research touts as being even healthier than “regular” water, providing calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and different vitamins in higher proportions than faucet, and in a format that makes it straightforward for the physique to soak up.

Still, just about all bottled water is categorically dangerous for the setting: the draining of springs, the mountains of plastic and glass created for the bottles, and the air pollution created by hauling all of these bottles around the globe.

So: What in the event you may make your personal mineral water at residence, bypassing the Perriers and Topo Chicos of the world? That’s the promise of Lang’s product, The Well, a countertop gadget that filters faucet water and injects pure salts and minerals into the cleaned-up liquid. What minerals? It takes just a little digging on Lang’s web site, however it seems it’s actually simply two: 15.8 milligrams of potassium and 0.4 milligrams of magnesium per 100 milliliters of mineralized water, although these proportions will be adjusted.

These minerals are delivered by way of a posh and surprisingly massive machine which invariably attracts “what the hell is that?” commentary from anybody who passes by. Larger than a microwave oven and never practically as good-looking, the all-white gadget isn’t prone to be anybody’s concept of a very good funding of counter house, although you’ll naturally wish to maintain it near the sink in the event you intend to ever get any use out of it.

The mechanism entails three separate filters—a sediment filter, an activated carbon filter, and a reverse osmosis filter—by way of which your water passes in sequence. After filtration, the aforementioned minerals are injected into the filtered water by way of two liquid packs which are inserted into the center of the gadget, form of like how ink cartridges slide right into a printer. A pair of those mineral packs are good for 250 liters of water earlier than they must be changed, at a value of $30 per pair.

As an added possibility, you may as well infuse your water with taste, and whereas varied flavors (and a tea) are “coming soon,” solely lemon is at the moment out there. An $18 cartridge which sits in a 3rd slot contained in the gadget will produce about 50 liters of water. The filters ($100 per set) want changing each two years, give or take.

I gave The Well a residence of a number of weeks at my residence. After a prolonged setup wherein liter after liter of water have to be poured into the gadget to kickstart the filters (there isn’t any option to hook this as much as a water line) it was lastly time to begin ingesting my homebrew mineral water.

For starters, I can attest that the water tastes good, and the tasting panel of my rapid household all felt the added minerals have been both not noticeable or added a really slight however nice salinity to the water. I discovered it additionally handy to have the ability to get scorching mineralized water on demand, with out the delay of ready for a kettle to warmth up—although I invariably measured the (adjustable) water temperature at 15 to twenty levels under what I had laid out in The Well’s onboard menus.