A Tea Addict's Journal

I hate it when some company usurps some cause to try to make money out of it.

This is barely tea related, but it is water related, so I suppose it fits.

In my never-ending quest to drink waters that I have never tried, I saw this water selling in Starbucks called Ethos. Now, before you accuse me, I went to Starbucks because 1) it was the only thing open at 6am. 2) It has internet connection. 3) I was really tired after a bus ride that started at 12:30am. 4) I needed caffeine to keep me going. 5) It was the only place I could find that allowed me to avoid McDonald’s tea.

Anyway, Ethos water. So, they donate 5 cents per bottle to helping provide clean water for kids in the world. Great. The goal is to donate $10 million. Great. That means you have to sell, let’s see, 200 million bottles of water? So if, say, all Taiwanese bought a bottle of this water for 10 days, we’ll get that $10 million, which also means that they’d have made money way beyond those $10 on those 200 million bottles they sold (at $2 a bottle at Starbucks!!).

I went to their website — no actual information about their water. Seems like nobody cares. They just tell you how serious the water crisis is, and how you have to buy their water to help save the frigging kids in Africa who are dying thanks to dirty water. Well, if I really want to help those kids, I’ll just donate my $2 per bottle to the kids directly, instead of buying your overpriced, insipid water (it’s very unremarkable, like Poland Springs) where you donate 5 cents a bottle. If you’re really that generous, tell me you’re a non-profit and you earn $30,000 a year for your CEO salary, you ex-McKinsey consultant, MBA co-founders.