Water sommelier Martin Riese has seen the human eye-roll and heard it before: "Water tastings? Only in LA".
Los Angeles, birthplace of many food trends, may prove the perfect setting for the next phase in Riese's campaign to make people think about water in the same way they think about wine.
US consumers spent US$18.8 billion on bottled water last year, more than any other nation, according to Euromonitor International. And, the residents of drought-stricken California are obsessed with all things water.
"For me, it's about taste," said Riese, who adds that the flavour and character of water also is determined by terroir, which covers such things as geology, soil and climate. Water has been a decades-long fixation for German-born Riese.
As a child he loved travelling with his parents and tasting the tap water at each destination. He parlayed that singular interest into a career.
Riese debuted his first water menu in 2006 at First Floor restaurant in Berlin. The public response: "Water tastings? Only in Berlin." He published Die Welt des Wassers ( The World of Water) in 2009 and a year later earned his water sommelier certification from the German Mineral Water Trade Association.