Ganesh Iyer, director operations India and Indian subcontinent of Veen, is the country’s first and only water sommelier. He can sniff, taste and determine the mineral content and pH level of the water, nothing something any of us can do. Veen is a Finnish company that bottles natural mineral water from spring sources in Finnish Lapland and Bhutan. The water is served only in some Michelin-star restaurants and high-end hotels.
Ganesh attended an 18-day accreditation course at Deomans Academy in Munich to become a sommelier.
He says, “It was a rigorous course where we were asked to learn all kinds of things. We had to learn and unlearn so many things in those 18 days.” Though he had experience in the field, he wasn’t familiar with the tastes of many of the minerals.
“It’s hard to understand the taste of water, especially its pH level. But over time, I’ve learnt that if you get a chalky taste after a sip of water, you can tell that it has good calcium in it,” he explains. While we’ve only heard of wine and food pairing, Ganesh explains that food and water pairing is also slowly catching on. “Indians are well-travelled now and the awareness of mineral water is growing. I’ll give it a couple of years for this trend to catch on.”