Why do people pretend to like seltzer water? A serious investigation

Okay, so I am standing in the break room at a thing last year, and someone hands me a can of plain sparkling water. No flavor. No nothing. Just aggressive bubbles and the faint suggestion of disappointment.

I drank it. I nodded like it was good. I said “oh, refreshing” with my whole chest.

It was not refreshing. It tasted like someone described water to a robot and the robot tried its best. And yet — I have a twelve-pack of the stuff in my fridge right now. So what is happening to us?

Is seltzer water actually enjoyable, or are we all lying?

Plain sparkling water tastes like carbonated sadness, and I think deep down most of us know this. The flavor — if you can call it that — is somewhere between “nothing” and “vague mineral regret.” And yet Americans spent over $20 billion on sparkling water in 2023, which means a whole lot of people are buying something they may or may not actually enjoy drinking.

I’m not saying nobody genuinely likes it. Some people do. Those people are different from me and I accept them.

Why did we all start drinking it in the first place?

The seltzer era really kicked off when people started fleeing soda — not because they wanted to, but because the internet made them feel guilty about it. Diet culture shifted, “clean eating” became a whole personality type, and suddenly the move was to swap your Coke for a can of LaCroix and act serene about it.

I did this. I am not ashamed. I traded my afternoon Diet Dr Pepper for sparkling water because I read something scary about aspartame and panicked. That was years ago and I still don’t fully understand what aspartame actually does, but here we are.

The point is — most of us got into seltzer for reasons that had nothing to do with taste. We got into it for reasons that had everything to do with wanting to feel like we had our lives together.

What does your seltzer choice say about you?

This is where it gets genuinely fun, because seltzer drinkers are not a monolith. There are factions.

There’s the LaCroix person — they were early, they’re loyal, they act slightly superior about it even though LaCroix tastes like someone waved a lime over the can from across the room. There’s the Liquid Death person — they’re drinking still or sparkling water out of a tallboy can that looks like a beer, because aesthetic is everything. And then there’s the Bubly person, who bought it because the tab has a little joke on it and honestly that’s a completely valid reason.

And then there’s me, buying whatever’s on sale at Walmart and convincing myself it’s the same as the fancy ones. It is not.

Does seltzer water actually have health benefits?

Here’s the thing — it’s not totally fake-healthy. Swapping soda for plain sparkling water does cut your sugar intake, and research from Harvard Health suggests plain carbonated water is about as hydrating as still water, with no real damage to your teeth from the carbonation alone. (Flavored sparkling waters with citric acid are a different conversation.)

So the health angle isn’t a complete lie. It’s just that “healthier than Mountain Dew” is not exactly a glowing endorsement.

Why do people perform enjoying it in public?

This is the part I find genuinely fascinating. You hand someone a La Croix at a party and they will sip it with an expression of calm contentment. Nobody makes that face drinking plain still water. Nobody.

There’s something about the bubbles that gives you something to react to. The slight bitterness, the fizz — it requires a facial expression, and we have collectively decided that expression should read as “sophisticated and refreshed” rather than “mildly betrayed.”

I think back to in my old post about things we do just to seem like we have it together — seltzer water is basically the poster child for that entire category. It’s a prop. A chilled, carbonated prop.

So why do people keep buying it if they don’t really like it?

Habit, mostly. And also — some people do actually grow to like it. Genuinely. The taste can recalibrate your palate over time, especially if you’ve cut way back on sugary drinks. What once tasted like punishment starts tasting like, fine, actually kind of fine.

There’s also a very real category of “flavored seltzer that I actually enjoy” — and that’s a different animal. A good grapefruit sparkling water or a blackberry flavored seltzer genuinely slaps. I won’t argue that. A Spindrift lemon sparkling water — which uses real fruit juice — is legitimately delicious and I’ll die on that hill.

But plain? Unflavored? We’re back to performing.

What about the people who ACTUALLY love plain seltzer?

Okay, fine. They exist. I’m not a monster — I’ll hear them out.

I have a friend, Carrie, who drinks plain seltzer the way other people drink coffee. Like it’s a reward. I asked her once — genuinely, not sarcastically, I was trying to understand — “Do you actually like it or have you just convinced yourself you like it?”

She looked at me like I’d asked her if she actually liked oxygen.

“I just like it,” she said. “It’s refreshing.”

I stared at her for a long time.

Here’s my very scientific theory: some people’s palates genuinely do skew toward bitter, mineral, low-sweet. People who grew up in Europe drinking sparkling mineral water with dinner don’t have the same “this is a health punishment” wiring that Americans raised on Hi-C have. Their baseline is just different. I accept this intellectually.

But I’m still a little suspicious. Because every single person I’ve asked — every confirmed seltzer lover — hesitates for just a half second before answering. Just a flicker. Enough to make me wonder.

I believe them. Mostly. I also think they’ve been doing it so long they can no longer tell the difference between genuinely liking something and just being extremely committed to the bit.

Is there a way to actually start liking seltzer?

Yes — and in my ongoing saga of trying to drink more water without wanting to cry about it, I’ve tested a few things that actually work.

First: get a sparkling water maker and carbonate your own. Something about the control over the fizz level makes it feel more like your choice and less like a health sentence. Second: add a tiny splash of actual juice — not a mixer, just like a tablespoon of tart cherry juice or pomegranate juice into your glass. You’re not making soda, you’re just giving your brain a reason to cooperate.

Third: get a good insulated tumbler and drink it ice cold. Temperature genuinely matters here. Warm seltzer is a punishment. Ice cold seltzer is at least a negotiation.

Fourth — and I cannot stress this enough — try the flavored ones first. There is zero shame in needing a variety pack of flavored sparkling water as a gateway. That’s just strategy.

Here’s where I land on this: some people truly love seltzer water, some people have successfully tricked themselves into loving it, and a solid percentage of us are just… still performing. Twelve years in.

And you know what? That’s fine. The performance became the habit, the habit became the thing, and now I’m hydrated and I feel vaguely virtuous about it. Worse outcomes exist.

But if you’re standing there at a party, sipping your plain LaCroix with a peaceful expression on your face while internally tasting carbonated regret — just know I see you. I am you. We are doing great.

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