Saddled with the “toilet to tap” label, recycled water still has a bit of an image problem. But in a blind taste test, UC Riverside researchers found that people prefer its flavor over tap water and that they like it as much as bottled water. Intuitively, that may sound crazy. But it makes sense, suggests UCR’s Daniel Harmon, lead author on a recent study analyzing the taste test published recently in the journal Appetite. “Bottled water and recycled water go through more or less identical purification processes,” Harmon said. Both, experts said, are subjected to reverse osmosis, which removes most contaminants.