How To Conduct a Water Taste Test Competition

A water taste competition is a fun and exciting way to draw attention to the intricacies of delivering safe and great-tasting tap water. When held during your annual conference, Drinking Water Week, or some other section event, it can also serve as a newshook to increase media interest in your event or celebration.

Drafting the Rules

You should first decide on the rules for your competition. Who is eligible, what are the requirements for participation, how will the samples be judged? Click here for the rules for AWWA's national competition.

Eligibility

When deciding who is eligible for the taste test, there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Participating utilities should be members of AWWA
• There should be no state or federal drinking water violations (MCL, monitoring, recordkeeping, etc.) violations for a specified period of time (i.e. the calendar year prior to the competition)

Requirements

You then must decide what the requirements for participation will be.

• How you want the water samples delivered (type/size of container; in person or shipped)
• The deadline for delivering the water (either the afternoon before or morning of the competition)
• Will you require a utility representative to be present?

Contest Judging

Things to consider when picking your panel:

• Who will be the judges (public figures, Section Board members, flavor profile analyzers, etc.)
• How will the samples be judged (on a holistic scale or will you look for certain attributes? Will it be a scale of 1-10, 1-5, etc?)
• Will you rank all samples, just announce the winner, announce the top 3, etc?
• Will you have different categories (size of water system, source water, etc.) *Please note that you will need to have a Best in Show to send the winner to the ACE Taste Test)

Event Planning

Once you have set your contest rules, it is time to start planning the actual event. Check out AWWA's Public Communication Toolkit for a comprehensive general guide for event planning. Below, please find specific items related to planning a water tasting event.

Defining Your Event

First you must decide the purpose of the event. Obviously, the purpose of the contest is to determine the best tasting water. However, do you want your event to be a media event, to be a formal tasting, to be fun and casual or a technical event? Will the event simply be about the water tasting, or will you use it as a platform to discuss other issues?

Identifying Your Audience

For a formal, technical event, you would expect your audience to be members of the water community who have a basic understanding of water taste and odor issues. For a more casual media or community event, you would expect the audience to be filled with journalists, local families, etc. - people with much less technical understanding.

Determining your Program

When drafting your program agenda, you should keep in mind your goals and audience - will you include lots of technical information? Or will you provide more explanatory information and gear your presentation to the layman?

A few other items to keep in mind for your water tasting event:

• It's a good idea to keep your samples covered until they're ready to be tasted
• Samples should be tasted at room temperature, to allow for any tastes or odors that are present to be detected more easily.

For more information, please contact Public Affairs at 303-347-6140.