The terroir of NYC’s tap water

New York City’s tap water used to taste of fish and cucumbers but now is some of the best tasting water in the country.

A handful of New York Times articles from the same month describe attempts to wipe out the “flavor bug,” which tastes “fishy to some palates and like cucumbers to others,” and “may even have tonic properties” despite its unpalatability. City officials began their efforts by building a bypass to cut out the Kensico reservoir at Valhalla from the New York water supply system. However, as the Times laments later in the month, “that Synura taste again taints water,” with a newly discovered colony in the Ashokan reservoir producing the “most pungent fish-and-cucumber flavor” yet recorded.

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