Despite a worldwide environmental movement to wean people off of bottled water, which depletes natural water reserves that localities depend on and requires unneeded amounts of energy to package and distribute, Japanese consumer preference for "mineral water" in PET bottle continues unabated, according the web version of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Surveys indicate that the majority of people think that bottled water is "safer and healthier" than tap water, despite the fact that local utilities have vastly improved their filtering technologies. Several years ago, in fact, Tokyo's own waterworks started bottling tap water and selling it at train kiosks and convenient stores under the name Tokyo Sui (Tokyo Water) to promote the idea that the city's tap water is not only perfectly safe to drink, but good-tasting as well.
The whole issue of "oishii mizu" (delicious water) is one that Westerners may find difficult to understand. Most people disliked pre-filtration tap water because it had a taste, usually due to chemicals introduced to kill dangerous bacteria when the water is transported long distances. That's why the tap water in Los Angeles, which was built on a desert, traditionally tasted awful and the water in San Franciso, which comes from nearby mountains, had no taste.
Over the past two decades Tokyo has gone to great lengths to improve its water supply by cleaning up reservoirs and watersheds, devising new filtering methods, replacing pipes and reducing the use of chlorine and other disinfectants. The more difficult problem is getting people to change their outlook, which is why the city bottled its own water and sold it. Apparently, it didn't work as well as hoped. In the Nikkei survey, more than half of the respondents, who ranged in age from 20 to 69, said they drink bottled water "often" or "sometimes." Among the most common reasons for drinking bottled water was that it either "tastes better" or is "healthier." Among those who said they "don't like tap water," the highest percentage were people in their 20s, about 57 percent.