Would You Pay $2.50 For A Bottle of NYC Tap Water?

By James Mulcahy

Paying top dollar for bottled water is nothing new - just look at all the city dwellers toting bottles of Smart Water around with them. But, would you pay $2.50 for a bottle of NYC tap water? The Wall Street Journal has word that a new store dubbed Molecule is selling bottles of Big Apple agua for that price, justifying the cost by putting the liquid through a series of treatments: "They say the water streams through a $25,000 filtering machine that uses ultraviolet rays, ozone treatments and reverse osmosis in a seven-stage processing treatment to create what they call pure H20." Yes, really.

While we're thinking the glass is half empty as far as this trend goes, and NY Post critic Steve Cuozzo agrees, calling the whole thing a big joke: "The 'improved'-water scam started in restaurants. If it works on diners, why not on eat-at-home dimwits? Some places charge nearly as much for tap “triple-filtered” in house as they do for Perrier and San Pellegrino." What do you think - New Yorkers have been known to pay for some pretty weird stuff, will this be the next big trend or is it all washed up? [via Diner's Journal]