Luxembourg restaurants introduce €4.99 ‘artisanal tap water experience’
Luxembourg’s restaurant owners have introduced an artisanal tap water experience in a bid to appease critics while ensuring they can make ends meet.
Diners in participating restaurants can now enjoy “Letz Tap™”, a new brand of water filtered through ancient plumbing and bearing notes of faint copper, subtle chlorine, and a lingering finish reminiscent of mid-’90s plumbing regulations.
What is more, each bottle of Letz Tap™ comes with a QR code linking to a Spotify playlist of dripping water sounds, curated to enhance the experience.
“This isn’t just water, it’s a liquid asset that hydrates both the body and the economy,”
declared Luxembourg minister for liquid integrity and beverage ethics Patrick Duuschtereg, raising a recycled wine bottle of tap water in salute.
The move comes after years of tap dancing around the issue by the government. While neighbouring countries serve free tap water (with differing degrees of eye-rolling), Luxembourg has allowed restaurants to make their own decision. As a result, most push customers into paying more for water than beer.
Restaurant owner David Bouffe says: “Customers come in demanding free tap water like we’re some kind of soup kitchen. What they don’t appreciate is we have massive overheads to pay, like rent, salaries and the mafia, oops, I mean VAT.”
Bouffe said that he offered free tap water for a while but found that everyone was asking for it to the point that one customer even brought his own Brita filter. To avoid abuse of the system, he asked customers to complete a 42-question Hydration Needs Assessment Form (HNAF), followed by a tongue elasticity test.
Bouffe says that Letz Tap™ strikes a happy balance for restaurant and customer.
Other restaurants were on the fence about the new move. One restaurant owner, who did not wish to be named, said the margin he made on selling artisanal tap water was diverted to paying the salary of a tap water sommelier trained in Paris to serve the stuff.
While some hail the move as progress, others call it a watered-down reform. Either way, Luxembourg seems determined to tap into every last drop of revenue.