grocery.
- Aquafina: less than 10 ppm
- Dasani: approximately 40 ppm
- Tap water: approximately 60 ppm
- Rochetta: 177 ppm
- San Benedetto: 252 ppm
- Evian: 370 ppm
I transferred all the waters to clean bottles marked simply
with numbers, making sure to note which water was in each
bottle. That way, when I dropped the bottles off at Motorino
—which I did without actually seeing Mathieu, lest I
unknowingly reveal any information, like Hans and his
trainer—Mathieu would have no idea what he was working
with.
Normally I systematically ignore the advice of my better
half, a PhD student in cryptography (that’s the study of
encryption, not the study of tombs), but this time, I shut up
and listened to her for a change. She suggested that in order
to further decrease bias and, more importantly, to allow me
to participate in the tasting as well, she—an unbiased third
party—should rearrange the numbered caps on all the
bottles, taking note of which caps were moved to which
bottles.
The result: three levels of encryption involving three
different keys, none of which were useful on their own.
Neither myself, my wife, my tasters, nor our talented chef
would know which pizza was made with which water until
after the tasting, when my wife would reveal how the bottle