Digital Social Hour
Martin Riese: Water Sommelier Destr*ys 90% of Bottled Water Brands | DSH #1641
26 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: Why is the concept of 'pure water' considered a myth?
The problem is there is no pure water on this planet.
Chapter 2: What led Martin Riese to become America's first water sommelier?
It doesn't exist because water always has minerals dissolved.
Chapter 3: How do minerals and TDS affect the taste of water?
And you can measure them by TDS, total dissolved solids. And the more minerals combined in the water, the stronger will taste the water. So it's kind of like cooking a soup with no salt tasteless.
Chapter 4: What are the common misconceptions about bottled water?
You're adding a little seasoning to your soup and suddenly the soup tastes good. The same with water. So you're adding actually minerals, a fancy word is electrolytes.
Chapter 5: Why do some bottled waters contain just tap water?
Other people will call it salt. It's all the same. Like sodium is a salt, electrolyte and a mineral. we all know how social media is. You need a little clickbait sometimes that people are actually paying attention to get your message through. So that was the idea behind the $100,000 Brand Award. That makes sense.
Chapter 6: What makes New York tap water unique for pizza and bagels?
Okay, guys, another fun episode today. We got Martin here. Water Sommelier brought six different... Is that six?
Chapter 7: How do microplastics impact our drinking water?
Yeah, six or seven. Seven different bottles. Six and one we cannot taste. Okay. One is more like decoration, but I will tell you a little story about it. Beautiful. Well, yeah, so he's a Water Sommelier. You must be the first one to ever hold that title, right? I don't want to say the first one. We have more in Europe, and I'm originally from Europe. I think everybody can tell.
Chapter 8: What insights does Martin provide about water filtration at home?
I'm not from South Texas, what people think sometimes. No, I'm German, obviously. I came to the country in 2011 based on an O-1 visa, extraordinary ability visa, based on my knowledge of water. And then from there, I got a green card, and now I'm a citizen even. So I'm very proud to be an American and German. Let's go. And you used to be a wine sommelier, right? Yes, I like wine too.
So you transitioned to water because you like water more. Yeah, because there's like millions of wine sommeliers. Why should I do what everybody else does? And the history of my idea with water came actually as a childhood already. Like I realized when I was four, five, six years old up north. I'm from the Danish border from a very small town, Aventoft. It's like 400 people living there.
But it's directly on the North Sea. So I was grown up by water. And on vacation time with my parents, I was just fascinated about the different tap waters in Europe. They all tasted differently to me. And then many years later, in 2005, I worked in the Hotel Palace in Berlin at the Restaurant First Floor. It's a Michelin all-star restaurant as the general manager.
And a guest came to me and said, hey, Martin, you have over 1,000 different wines, but you're just serving one brand of water. And he didn't like the taste of that particular brand. And he asked me, what else do you have for me? And I looked at him. I reminded myself a little bit of my childhood. And then I thought, like... In the restaurant business, it's all about options.
You have a wine menu, you have different liquors on, you have a beer, different taps on beers. Like you have so many options, but when it comes to water, our most important beverage in our lives, without that, we wouldn't sit here. We're just saying still sparkling or flat or tap, what do you want? No, water has taste. Why not giving you an option?
So from that, I had this idea of a water menu in 2005. So it's not an L.A. thing, what people sometimes think, because I live in Los Angeles now. Like, oh, it's so L.A. to be a water sommelier. No, I did this in 2005 already in Germany. And then again in 2011, I came to the States. In 2012, I had my first water menu in the States. But I'm considered the first water menu in America. Nice.
even at restaurants to this day, like their water selection is pretty weak. Yeah, I know. And it's kind of sad because let's be honest, I heard you had somebody, a mafioso already here in the rooms at one point. The water business is crazy. And in my opinion, it's a very messy industry. And there are some big, very big companies out there who are trying to
They're buying their way in, into the restaurants. And they're saying, okay, you have to carry these two awarders and you're not allowed to carry anything else. And they're giving you money for it per year or every two years or whatever they kind of a deal make.
And in my opinion, it's so wrong because, again, it's all about the guests, I think, in a restaurant and not about making on the side some side hustle money. Right. I don't like that. So for me, it drives me nuts when I'm going to an American restaurant, why I need to see two Italian brands, what I can see at the grocery store everywhere. That doesn't make sense for me.
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