This whole week on Two to TÜ we going to talk about the ins and outs of getting a drink in Germany. And no, it’s not going to be just about beer…

For example, today I want to talk about German Mineralwasser. Note that when pronounced the emphasis in that word falls on the “al” , so it’s [min-er-AL-vass-e], not [min-ER-al-vass-e]. Personally, I always get that wrong.

Anyway, if you look in the dictionary, you’ll see that Mineralwasser is translated as “mineral water”. If you want sparkling mineral water, you ask for Sprudel. Or, perhaps, you ask for Wasser mit Kohlensäure, “water with carbonation”. But Mineralwasser as a word is just supposed to mean the same thing as “mineral water” does in English.

At least that’s what it says in the dictionary.

However, Chris and I were at the Stuttgart airport back in March, and we wanted to buy a bottle of water to take on the plane. There was a stack of Perrier bottles next to the cash register on the counter. Perrier is a French brand of sparkling mineral water sold around the world, including here in Germany. Chris went up to the counter to order and said, in German, that he wanted a bottle of water:

Ich hätte gerne eine Flasche Wasser, bitte.

As he was saying that, he pointed to a bottle of the Perrier, which was right there between him and the woman behind the counter. But the woman didn’t pick up a bottle of the Perrier. Instead, she walked down further along the counter, grabbed a bottle of Evian water and handed it to him. Chris said no, he wanted the bottle of the water there – and he pointed again to the Perrier.

She looked at him and said (in German),  “Oh, you want Mineralwasser, then?”

Now, Evian is a brand of bottled mineral water, just like Perrier is a brand of bottled mineral water. The latter is sparkling, the former is not, but the different between the two in my mind is the whether or not there are bubbles, not whether or not the water is from a mineral water spring.

But rather than debate the finer points of branding and labeling with the clerk behind the counter,  Chris and I just agreed with her that we wanted the Perrier, since we needed to buy it so we could get on the plane.

But we both thought later that this had been rather odd.

Anyway, fast forward to the end of April, and I’m back in Tübingen, visiting a friend in the hospital who’d just had a baby. She and I walk down the hallway to the kitchen on her floor so she can make a cup of tea. I spot a spigot coming out of the wall near the kitchen. On the wall above the lone faucet there were two buttons: one was labelled Wasser, the other Mineralwasser.

You know I had to try them.

It turned out that the Wasser one was regular water – i.e.,  non-carbonated. But sure enough, the Mineralwasser button sent water out of that same tap that had bubbles. Yes, Mineralwasser turns out to be shorthand to mean sparkling water. At least in this part of Germany.  Who knew? Certainly not us – we don’t buy it much, and rarely order it in restaurants, as it is typically one of the most expensive drinks on the menu in Germany. (Tip: if you are in Munich, double-check that you know what the price of that half-liter of water is before you order it, so that you won’t need a drink of something stronger when you see how much it is when you get the bill. I’m just saying.)

Anyway, around here, no one uses the term Sprudel to refer to any kind of fizzy water, so forget what it said in the dictionary. If you see something labelled Mineralwasser, it will always have bubbles. Unless it is labelled Mineralwasser Natur – ‘natural mineral water.’ Which makes sense, of course, as I don’t think most mineral water springs are naturally carbonated, are they?

But then, how did the term Mineralwasser alone come to refer to the water that has the bubbles, anyway? And why is a Mineralwasser Classic the water that has the most carbonation of them all (yes, there are different levels of carbonated water you can buy here).

So many questions I’ll leave with you to ponder.

Now see, you might have thought there’d be little to say about water, eh? But this is why it’s going to take me all week to talk about drinks here in Germany, even when I’m not talking about beer.

Anyway, tune in tomorrow to find out what you get when you combine Mineralwasser with other stuff.