Water: A Closer Look/Pavia Café Part 1

What does the snowflake mean?

Water doesn’t get enough reviews, good or bad, so I thought it was a great subject for my second official critique. Specifically, the water I bought at Pavia on the 5^th floor of the Halifax Regional Library on Spring Garden Road, or as I like to call it, "the place where I backed into a concrete parking barrier and went into a subsequent blind rage".  Here it is, amongst some of Hayley Parsons' knickknacks, and apparently it's called "Eska". 

Yup. That’s water alright.  Check out that glass bottle. It’s transparent. Classic glass.  I like how the neck swoops and tapers in traditional bottle fashion.  Makes it easier to grip in case this empty ever needs to become a weapon.  Pavia sells these puppies for 2.50$, which is super annoying when I remember that I have loads of this shit at home, and on tap none the less. 

Our Barista made Hayley a vagina in her coffee.

Pavia (or “Pivia” as Hayley Jean calls it) is kind of "too cool for school". They have weird coconut water that I didn’t photograph, but I distinctly remember reading the label and saying to myself “Oh, jeez...” which is never a good sign.  The sandwiches are wrapped in paper and are like 9.00$ with tax. Nine Dollars! And they don’t even offer up a preview! I mean, if I am gonna drop a "T" (that’s a ten dollar bill) on some bread and some middles (i.e. meat, lettuce, pickle, tomato), I want to see how stacked those middles are. How do I know Pavia isn't just hot potato-ing my lunch and after a series of unwraps won't leave me with a pocket-sized panini or some shiz? Don’t trust food you cannot see. Words to live by.

And that's how it's done!

And speaking of words to live by, sorry, I mean not speaking of words to live by, back to the water. I opened the cap and like clockwork, off it came. I give the makers of Eska points for being predictable in a really necessary way.  I peer deep down the neck and just as it seems from the outside, the inside also appears to be 100% l'eau. Looks wet in there, as it was bound to be once the manufacturers filled ‘er up, and although visual evaluation is important, I try to use all my senses when performing my assessments. My ears feel at ease, happy to be in the absence of those deafening sounds of carbonation. I am also relieved by the lack of scent. Smelly water can ruin thirst and appetite, just take a stroll down by the ocean next time the tide goes out and you'll see what I mean. Yikes. But it's the taste (or lack thereof) that is really going to make or break this beverage. I hate to dish out a "thumbs down", so I cross a few of my digits for Eska instead. Water's gotta be a tough one to fuck up, but I am sure it's been done before, and will be done again.

Down the gullet it goes. I am supah hung over, so it might as well be liquid gold. Too good, and I immediately am struck by the panic one gets when you realise the amount of water you actually need is going to cost about 10$ more than what you are willing to spend. Apart from that though, I'm impressed. It’s cold, flavorless, and basically serving the only purpose I need it to: lubing up/cooling down my burning throat from the previous evening's one too many smokes and twenty too many ounces of vodka. It’s like an icepack for your insides and boy do I need it. The whole thing goes down fast and I decide I want to keep the bottle after, and only after, my little sister asks if she can have it. So I take it home, where I get some use out of it, as is captured in the image above. Here you can see Graham Ferguson demonstrating how to undertake a refill, and yes, this can be done in the home. If however there is confusion on how topping off a container works, check out the video tutorial below. It's a quickie, so don't blink, or you'll miss it.

Pavia’s water gets a "zero out of Harvey's" for costing me money (which is the rating system I have settled on: zero being bad, Harvey's being the best for obvious reasons). Almost everything I eat/drink will receive a "zero out of Harvey's" simply for breaking my bank, so I insist Eska and the dumb-dumb library café not take it personally. It's just me being cheap and bitter, not necessarily in that order. There's an opportunity to make up for this bad score anyway with Part 2 of my review, which will be on a cup of coffee purchased by Hayley. Stay tuned, I have a feeling this one is going to be a doozy.

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