"Do Europeans NOT DRINK WATER?!" | American Tourists React 

"Leitungswasser" translates to "Pipe water" and around where I am in Europe, no one has any negative feelings to it. We usually consider it superior to the bottles. The reason we do not drink tap water in restaurants is because we usually cook at home and when we go to a restaurant, it's something special, so we drink something special.

I recently returned from a week in the US. As a Norwegian, I have to say that tap water over there tastes like pool water... I also dare to say that a lot of bottled water tastes worse than tap water in Norway. Something can probably be attributed to habit, but that's how I feel.

Fun fact : many French people would be perplexed with La Croix sparkling water because "La Croix" in France is a brand of bleach or "eau de Javel".

I was born and raised in the Czech Republic and now live in Slovenia. I have never in my life met anyone who preferred bottled water 😅 Literally everyone I ever knew was always drinking tap water, with one exception: Restaurants. You're kinda expected to not get tap water there (although if you ask for tap water specifically, they never have any problems getting that for you, for free). This is one of many reasons why I find Americans grouping all of Europe together very whimsical (for them, Europe is usually France, Spain, and MAYBE Germany and Italy if they're feeling adventurous). I spent a lot of time in the Czech Repubic, Poland, Austria and Slovenia and let me tell you, I've had completely different experiences to what I see online. Another funny thing: I once went to a GI (gastroenterologist, a doctor that specializes in the digestive system) and he straight-up offered me a psychiatric evaluation when I told him that I track how much water I drink. "Your body tells you when it needs water, so why are you tracking it at all?" It was very funny. And in the end, it really turned out that I had a psycholocial problem. So take that as you will 😆

Speaking as someone from the Netherlands, I don't think bottled water is popular at all over here. Sparkling water is, but just flat water is usually drunk from the tap. It goes so far that I once heared a delivery person say they knew someone ordering was foreign (American in this case) based on the fact that they ordered water with their meal. I have never seen anyone buy bottled water for at home use. Only for drinking it on the way somewhere. I also remember interpreting for a Korean family, who didn't want to refill their water bottles from the tap in the bathroom, because it seemed too much like toilet water. I explained to them that the tap water was basically the same as the bottled water, but the idea made them queasy, so they just bought new bottles. Eventually they did become okay with filling bottles at the kitchen sink though :P

This is interesting to watch coming from the Netherlands. Over here tap water is the absolute king (together with coffee). People might buy a small bottle of water while on the go, but only if they don't have a refillable bottle with them. Some people like sparkling water, but you'll get some weird looks if you buy bottled flat water.

As a German family living in the US there are many things that we observe and feel as being weird without understanding why. One of these things is co-workers and other people everywhere walking around with huge drinking bottles as if preparing for a 3-day hike in the desert. In contrast, I hardly mange to fulfill the German recommendations that you mentioned in your video. Your videos always help to understand the backgrounds. Thanks!

I finally understand why 'paying for public toilets 'is always mentioned in American culture shock videos about Europe. It must be rather expensive to pay a Euro if you drink water all day long 😅

I'm Swiss and I drink tap water at home, sometimes humorously reffered to as "Hahnenburger", where "Hahn" is short for "Wasserhahn" with "-burger" as a suffix. If you ever visit a town in Switzerland and see a water fountain assume it will be safe to drink. If it is not, there will be a sign that will tell you it is not safe to drink.

In Finland it's pretty common to get just tap water even in restaurants. And tap water is definitely the go-to when you're thirsty. But we do love carbonated water. Sodastream is pretty common too, and you can make carbonated water out of tap water super easily.

Now wait a second; i think a better translation for "Leitungswasser" should be "pipe water". We don't drink water that goes down the drain, but that what comes out of the tap. And for good reason: in Germany, "Pipe water" is (allegedly) way stricter regulated and controlled than the raw materials and the processing procedures of the food industries. At least insofar as that tap water is not allowed to be enriched with any sort of supplements, unlike bottled water.

Being served chlorinated tap water and drinks with ice cubes made from that in US restaurants was a culture shock for me due to the awful taste. It felt like drinking from a swimming pool.

I'm Dutch, but I drink tap water all the time. Never had a taste for sparkling water. The USA seems to be even more impressible by marketing than we are here in Europe. Trends always seem to be more extreme My mother had kidney failure and had to life with dialysis and the often accompanying moisture restriction, so the topic of hydration was something that came up a lot with her specialists. What it always came down to was that it depends on your other intakes. If you use a lot of salt or potassium (also salt sort of ;o)) the body needs more water to keep the body healthy, but if you eat and drink "normally" the need for water is not that high. Drinkable water is a resource, just as oil and iron, and seems to become less readily available again, mainly due to pollution. Looking at the more wasteful US society in general, I sometimes wonder how long it will last. I would think with such large areas in the US where water is not readily available there would be more awareness, but that does not show. One thing that you didn't bring up, but really annoys me is the large amounts of drinkable water being wasted on the lawns in places where these shouldn't exist. Why?

From Denmark: Here its just like, we dont spend money buying waterbottles - we are getting the reusable ones and refill it and carry it in out bags… Thats why you cant buy bottled water everywhere, there is no sales in it 😂

Here is a relevant joke from Bulgaria. A journalist interviews a 100 year old woman in some remote village and of course asks her how she managed to live that long. And the woman responded that she drinks some rakia (a bit like brandy). If she has a low blood pressure she would drink a glass of red wine. And if she has high blood pressure, she'd drink white wine. The journalist asked her: "But water? When do you drink water?". "I haven't been *that* ill" said the woman.

As a German, an addition to the "no tap water in restaurants"-thingy: Restaurants here often earn more on the drinks offered than on the food. There has been a price fight, especially in places where they have to make lots of money in only a few opening hours (p.ex. serving meals to office workers mostly in the middle of the day - some restaurants only open from 11am to 3pm). The food is often a bit more salty than is the norm, so people drink more, and drinks are providing the extra income. That is also the reason why McD and BK do not offer free refills in Germany, they also make most of their money on the drinks. Even more so, since they can offer soft drinks from the tap (mixed on site from concentrate, water and gas instead of offering small bottles where they would earn less like smaller outlets have to). Also, maybe I missed it, but there's a law here that bottled water has to be brought to the customer in a restaurant in a sealed bottle and it has to be opened in front of the customer, so that he knows what he is getting (since some restaurants refilled the expensive mineral water bottles in the back room with carbonated tap water and brought them to the customer already opened). This also leads to people thinking they are getting ripped off if this is not the case and some happily pay more for "fresh and secure" water because they do not trust the kitchens (otoh: why do they eat there if they don't ?).

I think another factor is being a tourist. If you are walking around all day you need to drink more but you are probably getting less. Hotels have tiny glasses and no easy way to rehydrate. I'm British, I rarely worry about water at home, but travelling in Europe I always need to buy large bottles of water

Bottled water is definitely not the standard in Sweden, we almost always take tap water at restaurants. There definitely are people that drink fizzy water at restaurants, and it's always an option, but most people usually go for tap.

As a German who has lived in the US for a couple of years, the US tap water would be deem undrinkable due to the high level of chlorination used. That extends to sodas offered at fast food restaurants preparing the drinks with Sirup and tap water at the fountain. We even refused Ice in the sodas for that reason. I never got me head around the obsession with drinking and expecting tap water in the restaurants.

Every proper European know that water belongs in the espresso machine, not in the human body.

i remember my first time in germany i was on a trip with other french kids and we had so much trouble trying to get non carbonated water one time i tried getting an apple juice because i was tired of trying to ask for flat water in my broken german (i was 12), i felt so betrayed when i got sparkling apple juice it was hilarious

My body tells me when I need water, by beeing thirsty. Then I give it what it wants. If I crave salt, I eat somethung salty. I does often not need a lot so no need to over consume. And so on. Never force your body if it does not "ask" you for something.

I'm 71 now, but when I was a kid, soda in North America came in reusable glass bottles or metal cans. Milk was often home delivered in glass bottles, and milk sold in grocery stores was in cartons made of paper and parrafin wax. I don't recall seeing my first plastic beverage bottle until the 1970's.

I think the obsession with Sprudel is a very German thing. Where I live in Austria and even when I visit my German in-laws, tap water is the go to and certainly not reserved for cleaning. Sprudel is just considered "the better water" as in if you go out to eat, you would have a fancier drink than tap water, since it doesn't happen often and it would seem cheap to invite people and serve them tap water. Much like wine, as you said, we show our class with water. Also, if you order coffee it is usually served with water, under the assumption they coffee dehydrates and ordering a large glass of tapwater with the coffee on a hot day is pretty normal. Those Americans just don't see people drink as much water, because of the recommendations being different and we listen to our bodies, that just need less because of sugar and sodium and they don't get a glimpse of home life. We even tell our kids to not overdo it with the salt and sweets, "otherwise you will be thirsty at night".

I live in Scotland in an area that has recently become practically overrun with short-stop American tourists; seemingly drawn by the untrue rumour that this was where the ultra-English Harry Potter books were written. What really astonishes us is how the Americans keep going into shops to purchase multiple plastic bottles. Yes, that's right; they buy many plastic bottles. These bottles happen to be full of water, but they might as well be full of air, because the water in them comes from precisely the same source as the water in our taps. If we get thirsty for water, we just drink it from the tap. It's free of charge and doesn't require millions of non-degradable plastic bottles.

Whoah.. As a Swede, even the German intake seemed a LOT. I drink when I'm thirsty. I never ever carry around water unless maybe in the form of coffee ☕

In Germany, Leitungswasser (tap water = directly from the pipe) is the most regulated and safe type of food we have. But when I grew up, we didn't drink it just like that. Bottled carbonated water was the norm and only in the last couple of years, people around me have started to drink more tap water. I personally love it, because here in the Harz region, we have excellent water that even tastes really good 🙂

I think at least in Germany the relationship to tap water has changed over the years, especially since the invention of the soda stream, which will make your tap water sparkle. People nowadays drink more tap water I think. The reason it’s frowned upon in restaurants is because they make money with the drinks here. So if everybody just ordered free tap water, it would be bad for them financially. Asking only for tap water and no other drinks basically comes off a bit cheap, while if you ordered other drinks, they will usually be happy to also give a glass of tap water. I just travelled to the US and while free refills and tap water were great, the prices were also crazy in comparison. So I think it’s kind of included in the price to have unlimited water, while here it isn’t.

Leitungswasser aka tap water have zero negative connotations here in Europe. Literally it translated to pipe water. It have high quality controls and is perfectly safe to drink. The reason you don't get tap water in restaurants is because it's free and thus not fancy. In Europe going to a restaurant is a form of entertainment, it's about being fancy.

I live in Germany and only drink tap water. It's like someone else wrote here: Restaurants (the real ones, not fast food) are for special occasions, so the rest of my food I prepare at home or at work. At a restaurant I drink other beverages. At work I have tap water too. The quality of tap water in Germany is amazing. I visited other countries in Europe and it almost always tastes like chlorine elsewhere. I think they don't even notice there anymore, but it is not drinkable, if you're used to have good tap water at home. We have exstremely strict regulations when it comes to our drinking water.

I still don't get the tiktok from the beginning: wtf does that woman mean with "we finally found water" and "Europeans don't believe in water"?? Like.... turn on any tap that you come across and there's drinkable water? Especially in southern European countries almost every store has a fridge full of cold water?

Hey Ashton, great video but I think you should have mentioned the bottled water in Europe is usually a mineral water with different amount of electrolytes (Magnesium, sodium, iron, calcium etc..) You can chose the water depending on what minerals you want more of and of course for the taste. Did you know there are Water Sommeliers?

If you told me the first video i would start my day with was about the difference in the water intake between Americans and Europeans i wouldnt have believed it, but here we are. 😂

The trend in Germany is very much going towards drinking more tap water, especially as water carbonators like sodastream are getting more popular. It's much easier to carrry just a cartridge every couple weeks than a crate every week.

Europeans do drink tap water. Directly from the tap, with bubbles from the tap, cooled from the tap or as coffee and tea. However, Service in Europe sucks and therefore we don't get free tap water in restaurants. But then again, we don't play 50% tip (or whatever is the current rate in the US). Edit: I don't care about recommendations, those don't take into account the circumstances. I can guestimate quite good how much water I need. It's easily visible in the urine. Also "glasses of water" are not an official unit. We measure in Volume (liters). A glass can typically range from 4cl (shotglass) to 1l (Masskrug).

European here. When I was younger, I hardly drank any water at all. Despite being very physically active. I drank when I was thirsty, which was rare. The older I get, though, the more water I seem to need. Thankfully I have very nice tap water, might buy some bottled water with or without taste added now and then.

If only the human body developed a mechanism to alert the conscious mind to its need to increase fluid uptake... I'm never gonna understand why (healthy, non-elderly) people feel the need to guzzle water for no reason other than some imaginary daily quota. You're not going to forget about being thirsty, like you might about being hungry. Thirst is such a basic need that your body WILL constantly alert you to this. Drink when you're thirsty, if you're not thirsty, you don't need to drink.

Cultural differences. Go to a French restaurant and you can get a carafe of cooled tap water and/or mineral water. Forgot all about, living in Switzerland since 1977. I tend to drink a lot of water, of course we have a Sodastream machine that infuses tap water with bubbles - makes it carbonated. What I generally don't drink is commercial carbonated drinks or fruit juices. Mainly because of the sugar - I've got diabetes Type 2, so sugar is poison for me.

In Norway people just drink tap water, you only buy a bottle if you are on the go and get thirsty. Nobody obsesses about being hydrated, I mean most people just drink when they are thirsty I guess, the human body has a way of regulating itself and has for hundred thousands of years without using apps to remind us to drink

There is a TikTok trend called "water tok", where people get those stupidly large jugs with straws, and then add loads of different flavouring powders and syrups. It really annoys me, because when you add those flavourings, it's not water. It's basically what the UK calls "squash", a drink made by diluting a concentrate of some sort.

I think one reason Americans habitually drink more is the AC. In air-conditioned rooms, the humidity is often extremely low, turning you into dried fruit. I notice this in my car in the summer. We used to take at least two breaks on the way to our vacation place to pee. Today no one has to anymore. Then there is the food. If I eat your soggy sandwich bread or pancakes, I'll need either gallons of syrup or three cups of coffee. My standard German breakfast includes fruits like apples, pears, kiwi berrys, melon... or tomatoes or dairy products such as yoghurt and Quark in the morning, lettuce for lunch and raw vegetables for Abendbrot. I eat significantly less salt and sugar and protein, things that put a lot of strain on the kidneys. Another reason might be, that Gwyneth Paltrow isn't that popular here, as are all the Hollywood ladies who talk about stay hydrated here and avoid to feel hungry with water there. Most people I know who run around with a tap water filled bottle are people on a diet.

Aprox. 2 months ago a US female (Ashley Summers) drunk herself to death. She was a bit dehydrated and drunk water like crazy to compensate it. This even affected the salt-water level in her blood and caused a sudden death. The human boddy needs a certain degree of salts (Electrolyts) to transport signals, if this level is fallen below a critical level, some vital informations are no longer transported.

In Sweden, we drink tap water at home, it not something you ask for at restaurants , so water bought in store is fizzy and most often flavoured. We are told drinking too much can cause brain swelling and incontinence . We do use plastic bottles but we hand them back to the store and get a bit of money for it.

As a German, my favourite level of carbonation is "none". I really will never understand why people like water that hurts their mouth just as much as it does their bank accounts when you can just open the tap and pay 0.002€ per liter. You don't need to come from swabia to think that bottled water being 250 times more expensive is ridiculous..

Drinking more than 1.5-2l per day is totally unnecessary unless you are sweating it out (hot weather or exercise). These XXXL water barrels are ridicolous :D

German tap water isn't just safe to drink. It has quality control that is better than some bottled waters. The german infrastructure for Trinkwasser is crazy sophisticated, because there is a heavy distinction between Brauchwasser(water safe for use in flushing toilets, showering and the likes) and Trinkwasser Even crazier, most people don't have a separate line for Brauchwasser to their house, so we're flushing our toilets with a waterquality some places in the world kill for. That all for a prize of about 2€ per cubic meter.

Hi Ashton, Germany is rather unique with their Getrankemarkt and everyone buying crates of sparkling water in glass. Here in the UK it's almost impossible to find glass bottles, with an expression of the premium water brands being sold in glass or cans. Also, sparkling water is not popular here, majority prefer still and a lot of people just go for tap water. Again, I don't think the UK can represent more typical European water consumption just like Germany can't. Originally I'm from Poland and if I drink water it will be either sparkling or still but always with lemon juice

*EVERY VILLAGE HAS AN ARTESIAN WELL* here in Bulgaria - but they all taste different so people will drive 20km to the best one to fill up the 20L bottles for the week The one that supplies my building is very heavily mineralised so I put it through a water filter to soften it to my taste. Our water filters come in different colours to denote the level of removal they achieve, cos you still want some minerals in it for the taste. So I use a pink filter - medium.

2:05 "Cups" and "oz" are both fantasy units...

In Europe you usually drink bottled water in a restaurant when it is the only drink you have. If you however drink coffee or alcohol and ask for a glass of water next to it, it usually is tap water for free. This has more to do with that we find it strange to charge for tap water, but bottled water can be charged as a normal drink.

8:28 it's the norm in Germany, but not in France, where asking for a jar of tap water is quite common to accompany the wine bottle.

Thanks for clearing that up! The salt/ sugar in all food in the US was definitely a reason to drink more... I was also really shocked in the US about all the plastic plates, cups and even cutlery f.i. in hotels even during breakfast. It actually made me upset to be so wasteful. I've not had that feeling anywhere I've travelled...

For me the most interesting question is, why does everbody drink everything with straws. Most influencers online seem to no longer drink right from a glass or bottle but always sip everything through straws.

The big amount of "hard water" in Europe should have been mentioned, it's a pretty big factor on all of this.

Growing up in Europe I've also been told by educators to drink stupid amounts of water. And we too have our fair share of tap water absolutists, reusable bottle masochists, and bottled water connoisseurs. That depends way more on the class and country of the particular person than any broad cultural thing. One thing that is cultural though is that restaurants expect you to pay pretty much just to be there. They know that the true costs of their operations are the rent, wages, energy bill, etc., and whether you're drinking bottled water or soda makes no difference. In France, it is part of the culture that tap water is free but in most other countries asking for free water at a restaurant will be met with hostility. Btw, Leitungswasser really does just translate as tap water, I know it's not an exact translation but it also has that very neutral vibe to it.

I live in Switzerland and we call our tap water "Hahnenwasser" which is the literal translation of tap water. I drink plenty of it during the day but it´s nothing I´d order in a restaurant. It would feel weird to visit a restaurant and order something I could just get from the tap at home as well. Besides that I know that a lot of restaurants need to sell drinks as well to survive. So having a glass of wine or a beer (instead of tap water) with dinner not only enhances the culinary experience, it´s also a way of supporting my favourite restaurants.

I live in sweden, we have fantastic tap water. I may buy some sparkling water with flavour a few times a month. But I would never buy flat water here.

She means German culture. She is exploring German culture with drinking water, and nowhere else. Costal places in Spain/Italy and I'm sure others drink bottled water because most of their water comes from desalination plants. Some central European nations drink bottled water because it tastes different and there is cultural importance placed on that. Like wow I've tried some Dutch bottled mineral water (blue bottle with like a baby on it?) and it tasted like my body had received all its daily minerals. I'm from UK and we drink bottled water when we forgot to bring a bottle with us. In a restaurant if you want water they will by default give you tap - unless it's a posh restaurant and you'll get a glass bottle of water. There is a similar attitude with drinking water to America (it makes you healthier) but minus the rampant consumerism and wearing your personality in your products - you're unlikely to see these crazy big water bottles outside of a university campus, or Facebook mums posting how much water they drank. Europe is a very large area with cultures and languages that have evolved separately over thousands of years. Polish culture is in no way related to Portuguese culture. It's like saying Mexico is part of America (it is part of the continent), and lumping them in with USA citizens. Like what are you talking about pls. Don't even speak the same language.

So much mistakes in this video: Europeans don't prefer bottled water, they prefer tap water. Fizzy water is popular only in a few countries like Germany/Austria. Europeans drink way less soda than Americans. American tap water is just so bad you don't drink it, unless in Western Europe. Etc.

When you are younger you should drink mostly beer 🍻. After you pass 30 it’s better to slowly switched to something non alcoholic, like water or natural juices

I am a German who has been told by her doctor to be careful not to drink TOO MUCH water per day. I‘ve always had a rather high water intake, even as a child. This is good for a lot of things, for example the kidneys. BUT it also flushes out minerals from the body, so I have to keep taking supplements for several of them.

In France, it is absolutely normal to drink tap water, and i'd say half of the time, you'd get a bottle of tap water with your meal or single coffee. Sprakling water is on the rise here but still far awar from regular.... wich indeed is very common in Germany or the Netherlands.

Great video. Weird you did not mention the SodaStream that is a German household item that is used by many and that uses tab water to make their own sparkling water and lemonade. As a European I drink tab water at home. At the restaurant I drink sparkling, because I do not want to pay for flat water I could get for free. I also understand that they ask for money for the service they provide, so not complaining. I remember when everybody just drank water from the tab in Europe. The reason people buy non-sparkling water is marketing. Ask people why they buy it and they say that it is "better" than tab water, without knowing what the difference actually is from and do not know that many of the things they want are already in the tab water and are filtered out for bottled water. There is also the famous case of Coca Cola who stopped selling bottled water when it came to light that what they were selling was basically tab water. And many of the water sold in Europe is just that: Bottled tab water or tab water that went through a filter, removing non of the dangerous stuff (as that is not in it to begin with) yet remove some of the items that are the reason people buy bottled water in the first place. When I am at the office, I also just drink tab water and not the bottled water available. Just bought a cheap 1L bottle and use that. At home I often make sugar free infusions. I have always 5 different tastes at home. I drink 2-4 liters per day, depending on the situation. Also because I like the taste of the infusion. So this time I side with the Mericans, but for different reasons. Just drink tab water if you want non-sparking water. It is fine.

"...doesn't seem like a lot of water." - Simple fix: Use cups and bottles which are sufficiently big enough.

I haven't been to the US so maybe my perception is skewed, but whenever I try a US food recipe for something, it's incredibly salty or sweet. Some of the stuff sold in supermarkets branded as "American style" is just impossible for me to eat. Eating like this your whole life surely influences your water intake habits. Eating foods with high water content, like fruits and vegetables, makes me barely need any water through the day.

This is remarkably different from my personal experience. The first time I was on the west coast that wasn't Canada (i.e. LA), I was shocked about the water quality. After a shower I needed a bottle of (bottled) water just to get that chlorinated stuff off my skin before I got dressed. There is some imperfect water to be had around the world, but this was much worse than the worst overtreated swimming pool water I had ever experienced literally anywhere. That was the stuff they called "water" from the tap. I completely understood and could empathize with people who only drank water from the cooler. I would have bathed in and showered with bottled water only, had my budget not been too limited.

There's another important issue: not all waters are created equal. What matters is mineral content. All these different brands you shown in the German shop apart from being different brands also mean different levels of mineralisation. People here generally know that water low in minerals is of poorer quality. From what I know, bottled water in US is very low in minerals. It's now wonder they drink it so much as it's really hard to quench the thirst with such water.

I’m a 61-year-old American living in France. At restaurants here, we know to ask for *une carafe d’eau* which will be tap water. While many people will ask for water in a bottle, most tourists do not know how to ask for tap water, thus paying for a high margin addition to their meal. (We make a joke in asking for *de l’eau neuvième*, making the tap water of the 9th arrondissement of Paris sound extra fancy.) I mention my age as I too remember when we did not need a bottle of water with us constantly. In some ways it is smart to have a bottle of water handy during that 1 hour train trip to quell a coughing fit but I travel regularly from home to a location 1h45 away without taking a single sip. As an architect, I did also notice that the rise of carrying a bottle of water around was accompanied by the general disappearance of bubblers or hard-plumbed water drinking fountains in pubic buildings. In Paris and other locations in France safe drinking water is available to all in public parks and on the street. Kids will use the hydrants in parks after some raucous play. Folks without a home have a ready source of water on the street. And because Parisians are not immune to the rise in carrying about a reusable bottle, I’ve seen a few dispensers of sparkling water in newer parks. 😂 And that glass filling thing at American restaurants, particularly with ice water? That makes me crazy. Just leave a used wine bottle of tap water at my table and I will take what I need. (At the few places where that is done in the US, I imagine the servers are taught to dump that out when the diners leave as it would be “unsanitary” to just give it to the next table.) In France, even the small basket of bread at your table might have just been passed over from the adjacent table where diners just left.

The whole north of europe and some other countries drink only tap water, from my experience its americans that do not drink tap water? Americans drink more. But from my experience more soda and other sugary drinks like frapoccino while europeans drink mostly water, milk and juice. How much you need to drink depends on how hot it is. The recommended water intake in Sweden is 1.5-2L in the winter and 3L in the summer, if I remember correctly

What. It's the opposite, the stereotype is that Europeans drink lots of water but Americans only drink soda. Bottled water is for when you're not home and needs something to drink and have no option to buy from a grocery store/supermarket, an alternative to sodas. Like for most people it's too cumbersome to fill a bottle with water and home and carry it around all day.

Is this why visitors from the US keep going on about paying to use toilets? I don't think I have ever paid to use a toilet; I go no more often that I go to places which have toilets (cates, pubs, museums) and have never needed one at other times.

The more "bottled water" is very German though, Ashton. I'm a Dane and went to München and my whole family were confused when we asked for water and they brought out a steel capped glass bottle of "premium water" (whatever tf that is). Also, Germany will charge for water at restaurants which is wild.. In Danish grocery stores you will find one, maybe two, brands of bottled water costing 15 DKK (€2) per half liter - and you will never find larger bottles unless you want sparkling water

This water drinking has become a fashion thing, even here in Sweden. I work at a medium sized office, and you see people (predominantly female) who cant leave their room for a meeting without their water bottle! We are totally confident in our body to decide when we are hungry, but not when we need water! If the weather is hot or if you are exercising of course you drink more water, but this constant water intake is just weird!

I don't carry my water bottled with me for the same reason I don't carry around a canister with my oxygen supply. The thing is everywhere, why would I need to bring my own?

I found that Americans are much more likely to consume bottled water than Europeans, remember seeing people filling massive bottles at Kroger in Indiana because the tap water was so awful. It really was too.

An additional factor might be, that in Europe we do not tend to eat as much processed food, fast food or take-out/delivery. Cooking FRESH at home is most of the time not as salty or full of unnecessary sugar and flavour enhancer.

Here in Poland, I usually have no problem with getting tap water in a restaurant. I typically don't even have to specify it, it's just the default when I ask for a glass of water. Also, we don't have glass bottles unfortunately, it's all plastic. But other than that, I agree that drinking water isn't treated in such a cult-ish manner. Me personally, I almost never drink pure water. It's all in the form of fruit or herbal tea, or sometimes juice or something.

I aspire to have this level of editing 😭 (I am literally typing this as I drink from my 1.5 L bottle that I try to drink 2-3 times a day 🤣🤣)

7:33 In the UK it's the law, in order to get an alcohol license for a restaurant or bar you need to serve free potable water. America really isn't that weird, and most people get tap water here. Although there is a water asile in the supermarket where you can get fizzy water, although most the time that people buy bottled water is probably either at a petrol station or because they don't have a container.

In most restaurants here in Norway you can get free tap water (and very good), but they don't actively promote it because they'd rather earn money on you drinking something else. In many countries unfortunately tap water could bring you in trouble if you have not adapted to the local water quality.

Interesting video, just one question - ever heard of hyperhydration, though, while there can be not enough hydration, there can be also too much of it.

I switched to (German) tap water over ten years ago, drinking about 1.5 to 2 liter per day. Going a bit beyond 2.5 liter is not dangerous. But there is a dangerous level of drinking too much since it flushes mineral nutrients out of your body. There are many known cases where people ended up in hospital due to drinking too much normal water during a marathon.

How Americans pee in traffic jams? When you drink so much water, you need to pee much.

Thankfully, where I live (a Prairie Province in Canada), I can drink tap water. I do drink a fair amount but I also LOVE salt! I think it pretty well equals out.

Hi Aston! Interesting observations. I was born in Germany in 1958. During my school days, we would drink a glass or cup of hot or cold chocolate for breakfast and occasionally we would buy another small pack of milk or cold chocolate at school later in the morning. When I came home for lunch, the rule was "No drinks to go with your food, otherwise it will dilute your gastric acid and you won't be able to digest your food well." We NEVER drank tap water, let alone offer it to a guest, although its quality was tightly monitored by the water utilities. If you happened to live in a house which still had lead pipes, it would have been a different story, but awareness of that only grew much later. I think after all the deprivations of WW2, Germans were heavily talked into indulging on consumption of bottled water as an indication of abundance and luxory. And it was always carbonated water ("classic"). I learnt that I liked flat water much better when I started traveling a lot. And I could relate to Americans going "Yuck, this tastes sooo salty"! when they tried carbonated water even up to the 1980ies or 1990ies. But now most Americans I know prefer carbonated drinks, and so do my somewhat older relatives and friends in Germany. The younger ones, though, and the women un particular, prefer flat water. And as for the quantities of water I consume nowadays, I learnt to drink much more while staying in the US. Up to the age of around 25, the amount of water I consumed per day was shockingly low.

*I HAVE PLUMBED IN MINERAL WATER* here in Bulgaria - the normal water is totally drinkable but my apartment block has an artesian well so I have 2 water meters. The strange thing is - the washing machine is plumbed into the mineral water supply!?!?!?!? I think this comes from the era not that long ago when people would wash their clothes in the village well. Every village here has a well in the centre where mineral water is free and people used to make use of the free water for water-intensive things like washing clothes before automatic machines were common. So people expected to wash their clothes in mineral water... This is my best guess.

Greetings from Vienna: For me its tap water all day. The last time I ordered bottled water was approx. in 2022, not only is it cheaper but better for sure. Because our water comes from the alps over the Hochquellleitung. And it gets a monthly test and the results are printed on the Vienese Waterworks Homepage. And for Bubbles I have a Soda Stream machine.

Europeans prefer bottled? Huh, that's pretty big news

In Germany we don't have service charges and tipping is much less. Thus drinks are far more important to make a profit for a restaurant. Therefore simple water is comparably expensive at a restaurant and we rather order something like a beer, a wine, juice, tea, or so on. At home we mostly drink water though. As tourists don't see us at home, they get the impression we don't drink a lot of water. Regarding 'free' tab water at a restaurant, I would like that but either prices for meals would go up or things like service charges would need to be added. Also please don't forget that local customs vary a lot across Europe. Italians are very different from Germans and those again from French and so on and so forth.

I live in England and often ask for tap water in restaurants but not as my only drink. I’ll also be having wine or coffee so the restaurant doesn’t miss out. I never buy still bottled water, even though it’s usually spring water or mineral water, I do buy sparkling water though which I drink instead of sweet,fizzy drinks which I don’t like. The taste of tap water varies around the country but it’s always safe to drink and fortunately tastes pretty good where I live.

Trust Ashton to make drinking water interesting! Loved it!

im in the UK and i have a medical condition called PoTS which means my blood pressure is often too low, so i drink as much water as i can in order to push my blood pressure up to stop me feeling faint and fatigued. But even i would struggle to drink one of those giant bottles the American tourists were chugging in a whole day. Like i drink as much as i can, but there's a limit to how much i can take in before my body just starts saying no. I would reckon on a good day i can manage 2L of water, not including other fluids like a cup or two of tea and soup etc. But often more like 1.5L. And i have a very real incentive to keep drinking and often push myself to drink when id rather not be. How do Americans physically consume that much?

Your body knows when you need to drink. It's why you get thristy.

I live in Denmark. Bottled water is very rare in our country. Yes, it can be found but we don't usually drink it. Our tap water tastes far better and we pay for that in our consumption of water in our house. Why buy something that we have for free?

Honestly, when I hear the recommendated water amount, I always translated that as fluids. Of course juices, tea, soup and even stuff like watermelons count! I did struggle with drinking "enough" for a while, enough that my mom teased me about being a camel or a prune. I admit I used a cute free app where you watered a plant daily as you drank your fluids and making sure the plant kept growing was enough motivation to no longer need it. But overall, unless it's all coffee or energy drinks, fluid is fluid in the end. I am just sitting down with a 0,5 liter cup of tea as I watch this.

7 gallons per day, that is 26.5 liters of water. The nut at 6:28 has a strong death wish! This amount of water would wash so many electrolytes out of the body that it would no longer be able to function. Just 5, 7 or even 10 liters can lead to considerable damage and even death. This is because the large amounts of fluid in the body also increase the water content in the blood - so the blood becomes thinner. This in turn leads to a drop in the salt content of the blood. However, she is probably not able to drink that much.

As Iceland is still part of Europe I'd like to chime in, most of what you talk about as European things is mostly mainland Europe (or at least not as much Northern Europe). I honestly didn't see bottled water for sale in Iceland until the tourist boom after the 2010 eruption, but always remember buying water as a kid when travelling in Spain and how I thought that was so strange to not drink it from the tap. Just don't drink the hot water, take cold water and heat it or it will taste sulfur-y

I personally do prefere Pinot Grigio.

As a European I kind of agree with the American tourists. Nothing pisses me off more than shops or restaurants either not having normal water or bringing me carbonated water by default when I just ask for water. Maybe I'm just weird, but when I get thirsty nothing can sate it aside from some cold regular water. Carbonated water and sodas just make me more thirsty.

I have an issue with digesting food without drinking water constantly so I really do appreciate more and more restaurants here in Poland offering tap water or at least not looking at you funny when you ask for it.