Now thanks to TikTok, we’ve been introduced to another puzzling delicacy: welcome to WaterTok.
The hashtag #WaterTok currently has a staggering 138million views on the platform. Watch any video, and you’ll find creators sharing ‘recipes’ for flavoured water, usually made using a mixture of syrups and powders – all drunk out of a Stanley Quencher cup, of course.
One of the pioneers of this trend is Tonya Spanglo, a mother, grandma and self-professed ‘water girl’ from Oklahoma.
‘If you would try this water, you would be so freaking happy that you would know what to do with yourself,’ she says in one video.
If you’re a British person watching these videos, the chances are you’re looking up at the Robinson’s orange squash in your cupboard with confusion.
Have we been aboard the WaterTok train for all this years without knowing it?
‘I personally feel like it helps me get my water in more, because I’m not going to drink plain water,’ says creator, Drue. ‘If this is going to help me get my water intake in, I think it’s great.’
Despite Kanye immortalising Ribena in American Boy, if TikTok is anything to go by, it seems our transatlantic cousins are only just discovering that yes, adding flavour to your water makes it taste better and more drinkable.
We can’t quite come up with a definitive answer as to why squash does not grace the supermarket shelves in America – to the best of our knowledge, it’s just not a ‘thing’ there. If you say squash to an American, they’re thinking of a pumpkin type veg, or maybe the sport.
But don’t think that your simple summer fruits squash is going to wash with the water girls. This is squash, but not as you know it.
Ever wanted to try water that tastes like a wedding cake? Well, now you can.
Some of Tonya’s popular videos include piña colada water, made using pineapple powder and coconut syrup, and lemon cake water, using lemon powder and vanilla syrup.
The various concoctions and flavours are more weird and wonderful than the next, and we still can’t quite work out what ‘unicorn water’ is actually meant to taste like.
But while she insists they’re healthy, Tonya, and the wider WaterTok community, has come under fire for turning the healthiest of drinks into a beverage full of chemicals.
‘If that’s water, my diet coke is water too,’ wrote one commenter. ‘Water with chemicals,’ added another. ‘At one point is it not considered water anymore?’ asked a third.
While many of the powders and syrups used are marketed as zero-calories and zero-sugar, it’s the ingredients, including artificial and sweeteners they’re made with that could be a cause for concern.
Instead, experts recommend dropping fresh ingredients, like lemon, orange or lime, into your water instead.
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