Georgia's (Probably) Most Famous Export: Mineral Water

Image taken from the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.

Mineral water is Georgia's most famous export, especially in the former Soviet Union. While La Croix has become recently trendy in America, mineral water (and here I am discussing the sparkling kind) has come nowhere close to reaching the ubiquity it has in Georgia. It's on every supra table (feast), it comes around at funerals, it pours out of springs across the country, and there's an amusement park centered on mineral water in the town of Borjomi. It is also considered an excellent hangover cure. It's most commonly served in 500 to 750 milliter bottles that you pour out into small cups (4 ounces?). If you're at a supra you just pour it into your own cup. If you're at a funeral or otherwise sitting in a place where not everyone has a cup it will be poured for you, the pourer will wait for you to drink it, and then refill and continue on to the next person.

Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan

Source: Mr. Wilson's History Website, Liberty Middle School

Since it's already been mentioned, we'll start with Borjomi, the most famous of Georgia's famous mineral waters. This one comes from a town, Borjomi, in the southern Samtskhe-Javakheti region. People travel to the town in hopes that the water will cure their ailments, and a small tourist economy has grown up around the springs, including the aforementioned park with a cable car, and ferris wheel, a public spigot where a grumpy lady will fill any size bottle you hand her with water, and a museum in the former bottling factory. The spring was apparently discovered and bathed in thousands of years ago, and then rediscovered by the Russian army in 1829. Exports of Borjomi began during the imperial period and continued during Soviet times, reaching around 400 million bottles annually in the 1980s.

All u can drink.

As far as the taste of Borjomi goes, it's one of the saltier ones around. Some days it's a little too salty for me, and some days I love it. This drink is not super popular with the American crowd, but is with the Georgian and Russian ones. A fellow PCV says: "Borjomi is like on the bottom of my list because it's so salty. Also because it's so popular and I don't do mainstream shit." It's not the most bubbly and goes flat pretty quickly. The bubbles are pretty average tbh - medium size, middle-of-the-road frequency. I almost never buy Borjomi, but if I'm at a conference at a fancy hotel and they put bottles of it on every table I will take them all. The glass bottles are nice but probably not worth the extra 20 tetri or whatever they cost more than the plastic ones. Also comes in cans for some reason, so they get extra points for being widely available, and for coming in a wide range of containers. 7/10

A Borjomi branded cable car in the Borjomi Mineral Water Park in Borjomi.

Pic and science stolen from Rakuten.com

Likani is the saltiest and more minerally tasting of the bunch. I've heard it compared to "drinking blood," or to "licking a rock," and a number of Americans I know won't drink it. I will if there's not other option, but it's not my favorite, and also probably too salty for everyday consumption. If you're really looking for that straight off the rocks vibe or are feeling mineral deprived, this is the drink for you. If not, look elsewhere. Honestly it's been so long since I drank this that I don't even remember the bubble quality but I feel like they were sparse. When I do drink this in large amounts I think constantly about how much extra sodium I don't need. This also comes from the town of Borjomi, from an area called Likani, which is also home to a Romanov Summer Palace that was later frequented by Soviet officials including Josef Stalin. Likani has a nice blue-green bottle, but I've only ever seen it in the 500ml size. It's widely available. 4/10

The author color-coordinating with Likani Palace a long, long time ago.

Nabeghlavi is by far the most popular brand of mineral water in Peace Corps. It's minimally minerally, has a nice amount of bubbles, and has an excellent advertising campaign. It's widely available, and the bottles have a weird yellow-green color scheme but it's ok. It apparently comes in cans but I've never seen them. Also it's from Village Nabeghlavi the region next to mine, Guria, and obviously the closer anything is to Adjara, the better. This water had an 8/10 but then I found out that apparently the spring was discovered in 1905 when local buffalo showed a preference for this water. 9/10

A Nabeghlavi ad taken from their Facebook page

Another high quality ad.

I am so persuaded by this advertising. 

Sairme is an ok bottle of water. I bought it once to try something new but it was a hot Batumi day and it was warm before I opened it, not a good start. It got flat pretty fast too, but it didn't have a super strong mineral flavor, which is nice when you really just want to hydrate and not turn into a human salt lick. The second time I got a bottle of this I waited too long to buy my train ticket and second class was sold out, so I had to pay an extra 26 lari for first class. The only thing different about first class is your chair is a lil bit bigger and you can get a bottle of mineral water but you have to know it's happening and go get it before they run out. Definitely not worth 26 lari. My rating of this water is tainted by bitter memories. It's not widely available and I've only seen in in plastic half liter bottles but has a nice deer logo. It's from Sairme, a resort outside of Kutaisi in Imereti, where it was purportedly discovered by two hunters following a wounded deer sometime in the 1890s. 5/10

Some people like it more than me I guess, pic borrowed from Caucasus Business Week.

Kokotauri is the best water on this list by far, and it's probably not just because the spring is 5 minutes from my house. It is not super minerally tasting and it has large bubbles in large quantities. It's very refreshing. The label has a nice picture of the local forest on it. It comes in one and two liter plastic bottles, and can only be purchased in the Keda Municipality as far as I can tell. In news that won't shock anyone who read the rest of this post, it's bottled in Village Kokotauri, and was first bottled in 1972. It has apparently been "branded by the people" as the Water of Immortality. The company's web presence is low and there do not appear to be images of the bottle online but it's the one with the forest on it. It also says Kokotauri in three languages, so if you want to, you can figure it out, and you should. It's the best. 10/10

I guess I've never actually taken pics of Kokotauri, but it's in the distance somewhere.

Just kidding, I apparently have a pic of the bread stand, but they painted it blue this morning.

Honorable mention: my village once had a bottling plant for Kemisi, a brand I can find no other information about. Awarded a posthumous 10/10

An old sign.

P.S. Please comment with any mineral water fun facts, opposing opinions, brands I missed, or sketchy springs you think I should drink from!