The Wet Job of Reviewing Water: A Profile on Waterreviewsbynick

Nick Taylor (@waterreviewsbynick) sips water from his water bottle. (Photo/Roman Noravian)

BY: ROMAN NORAVIAN

A cornerstone of social media is food reviews, but you'd be hard-pressed to find an account dedicated to reviewing drinking water at a college campus. This is exactly what Cal Poly first-year physics major Nick Taylor does on his Instagram account @waterreviewsbynick. He finds different water bottle filling stations at Cal Poly's various residential and academic buildings, chugs the water, and then rates it on a scale of one to 10.

What inspired you to start the @waterreviewsbynick page?

Nick Taylor: I think it was just I had an argument with a friend about how fast I could chug a liter of water. And I was like, you what would be funny? If I just started chugging a liter of water and then posted it to Instagram.
And initially the idea was I would not even give it a review. I would just go, that's water or that's not water.

How do you decide which water filling station to get your water from?

Taylor: If someone says, hey, there's this water filter, you need to try, like go for it. And if I'm in the area, if my water bottle's empty, I'll go for it…The reason I got Santa [Lucia] water is because someone texted me and they’re like, “You need to try Santa Lucia water. Text me when you're available, I will get you into the building so you can try the water.” And that one actually ended up being one of my favorites on campus.

Why do you chug water instead of sipping it?

Taylor: I just think it's funnier to chug it.

Will you ever expand into reviewing international water?

Taylor: My auntie Bonnie, she and my uncle Mark, they took a trip to Canada. So I've had water from Canada before. They brought it back from the Toronto airport and they were like, you need to keep this in the freezer for at least an hour and a half before you drink it because it needs to be cold like Canada. And then I had my friend Max get me water from Iceland and my friend Gabby get me water from Spain. So I've had three international waters.

Would you say that sparkling water is harder to chug than normal water?

Taylor:
It is way harder. There's a couple of things that factor into chugging the water, specifically with the temperature, but also you have to worry about how sparkling is it? There's a balance of how fast you want to chug it because you don't want to take too long because then you can't do it in one sip. 
But you also don't want to go too fast because it burns…And you also can't burp because then it's all going to come back out and that's just disgusting.

Have people recognized you from your videos? If so, what have those interactions been like?

Taylor: I think my favorite story to tell is that I was cramming for a chem test. It was 10:45 p.m. outside of VG’s [Vista Grande]. So over an hour and a half after VGs had closed, I'm sitting in the corner doing chemistry on my computer and a group of people came up to me and they were like, “Oh my God, are you the waterman?” And I was like, it is almost eleven o'clock at night. I was sitting in a corner. How do you recognize me? But no, it happens. And it's always kind of cool, but you never expect it.