Carbonated Water

Sparkling water is a simple, delicious beverage. I’m about to tell you more fun facts about it than you knew existed.

The History of Sparkling Water

Sparkling water got its big start in the mid 1700s. While mankind had long drank sparkling water from certain springs which produced naturally-carbonated water, it wasn’t until the 1700s that humans had any reliable way of producing it ourselves.

Interestingly, while the common way of producing sparkling water today is to add pressurized C02 into water, this was not the original method discovered. A man named Joseph Priestley had a brewery in Leeds, England, and had some water near some of his fermentation tanks. He noticed that the water near the tanks started to develop a pleasant taste and released many bubbles when drunk. He started routinely placing water near his brewery tanks to keep making this special water, and even started serving it to his friends, who quite enjoyed it.

Eventually, in 1772, Priestley wrote a paper titled “Impregnating Water with Fixed Air” (‘Fixed Air’ was the name for the air blanketing fermenting beer), which documented this process for producing carbonated water. He eventually learned that he could more easily recreate the process by dropping the “oil of vitriol” (aka sulfuric acid) onto chalk to produce C02, which would dissolve into a nearby bowl of water. Priestly described this discovery of soda water as his “happiest discovery”.

Once Priestley started mass producing this water, many others started following suite, and over the next century countless modern day sparkling water brands like Schweppe and Perrier started popping up. Eventually, such bottlers learned that they could get much more intense sparkling water by manually pumping pressurized C02 into water, rather than using methods like Priestley’s.

Etymology

As you may or may not know, there are a LOT of different words for carbonated water: soda water, sparkling water, mineral water, seltzer, club soda, etc. It turns out that many of these have different original meanings, but as of today have mostly blended together.

Soda Water: Originally, many carbonated water produces would add sodium salts to the water to add certain flavors. Sodium was shortened to “soda”, and so until WW2 the term “soda water” was the most common way to describe carbonated water. (This term also became generalized over time, leading to all soft drinks in the US today being referred to as “Soda”).

Two Cents Plain: During the Great Depression, carbonated water was the cheapest drink you could find at a soda fountain, costing just 2 cents. So, this name became popular.

Seltzer: There is a town in Germany called “Selters”, which has countless natural mineral springs. Since the late 18th century, this water has been bottled and sold under the moniker “Seltzer”. During the late 1950s, this term started to become more generalizable to describe all sparkling water. That being said, officially, seltzer water tends to describe carbonated water with no sodium.

Sparkling Water: A generalized term for carbonated water that became popular in the late 1900s.

Club Soda: Another term that became popular in the 1900s, which technically officially describes carbonated water that still contains sodium salts.

Fizzy Water: Another general term that has waxed and waned in popularity over time.

Why does it taste so good?

There are a few interesting reasons why carbonated water tastes so good to people.

1. When carbonated bubbles come out of their dissolved state and burst, they create a pleasant physical sensation on your tongue.
2. Carbon dioxide combines with water to form carbonic acid. This acid gives carbonated beverages a more acidic taste, which some people find very enjoyable.
3. Bubbles lift aromatic notes in beverages into the nostrils, helping intensity the perception of flavor.

There are a few other intriguing aspects of the taste of sparkling water. For instance, did you know that carbon dioxide bubbles actually trigger pain cells that incorporate the TRPA1 protein, a mechanism responsible for the general detection of pain. Humans seem to enjoy some pain caused by this mechanism in certain cases (In a related vein, alcohol and spicy foods both trigger TRPV1, a similar protein that detects a different type of ‘burning pain’).

It also turns out that the tingling sensation of carbonated water isn’t actually fully understood. How do we know this? Carbonated drinks stay ‘tingly’ to the mouth even very deep underwater, where the C02 bubbles don’t pop due to the high pressure. It is suggested that a specific enzyme found on the tongue may help explain the tingliness.

Carbonated Water and Social Drinking

Carbonated water has had an interesting effect on social drinking over time. Because it offers an easy way to help dilute alcohol, while still tasting quite good, it has played a key role in normalizing social drinking of hard alcohol (without it, there would be far fewer acceptable ways to drink liquors like vodka or bourbon without getting really drunk really fast).

This has led to the popularity of carbonated water being closely tied to the popularity and acceptability of social drinking over the years. In times and places were drinking was highly regulated or controlled, carbonated water became far less popular.

Caron dioxide can help you get drunk, maybe

One study found that drinking carbonated water with alcohol helps you get drunk faster. That being said, the study suggested the effect only lasts for 45 minutes, it didn’t appear to work on every participant of the study, and the study has never been reproduced. Lol.

There’s a lot of variance in bubbles!

Not all bubbles are equal. It turns out that the less minerals are in water, the fewer things the C02 bubbles can “latch onto”, resulting in less carbonation. This is a major reason why most of the very bubbly carbonated waters you see are mineral waters.

The temperature of water also has a huge effect in how bubbly you can get it. Cold water can dissolve much more C02 than hot water.

Furthermore, in general, things like the pressure of the applied C02, the temperature of the water, and the minerality of the water impact how “big” the dissolved C02 bubbles are. This is why some carbonated waters have a million teeny tiny bubbles, whereas others have bigger, more pronounced bubbles.

What else is there to know about carbonated water?

1. Contrary to popular belief, carbonated water does not actually remove stains any better than regular water.
2. Carbonated water’s increased acid level helps kill bacteria, and so is in general better to drink in foreign countries or places where you are worried about water quality.
3. Carbonated water can be a really interesting ingredient to cook with. Many chefs use it in things like tempura batter or dough instead of regular water — resulting in a lighter, fluffier, more “buoyant” dough.
4. Don’t trust the plastic bottles — plastic bottles are more permeable than glass, and as a result C02 escapes much more quickly through plastic bottles than glass bottles.
5. Speaking of permeability, for a long time carbonated water was only available made “live” at pharmacies and restaurants, since any container would leak the C02 so quickly that it was pointless to purchase it and store it at home.
6. Over 1500 different types of cork and other “bottle stopper” patents have been filed to stop carbonated water from losing carbonation quickly. However, it was not until William Painter patented his “crown cork” in 1891 that one of them actually worked.
7. In many ancient cultures, people believed that bathing and drinking sparkling water would help cure diseases.