2.6-Billion-Year-Old Water Tastes 'Terrible', Researcher Says

There's a reason why you shouldn't drink water older than two days, all the more if it's billions of years old. However, a researcher did and she shared how terrible it tasted.

How Did The Oldest Water Taste Like?

In 2013, scientists discovered a source of water nearly 1.5 miles beneath the Earth's surface. It was isolated from the outside world for millennia and was trapped in thin fissures amid a granite-look rock. According to scientists, the water was 2.6 billion years old.

It's easy to say that the water is not safe to drink. However, professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar, the lead researcher, wasn't afraid to try it.

She found herself getting close to the water and decided to try it. When asked how the oldest water tastes like, it's "terrible," Unilad reported.

Lollar detailed how the water tasted like in an interview with Los Angeles Times. According to her, there was something in it that no one wants from their drink - saltiness.

She explained that the taste was expected. It was reportedly the reaction between the water and the rock, resulting in extreme saltiness. Lollar said it was saltier than seawater.

It has a greater viscosity than tap water. It resembles light maple syrup in consistency. It is colorless when it first emerges, but as soon as it comes into contact with oxygen, it turns orange due to the formation of minerals, particularly iron.

Lollar advised others that they would definitely not want to drink it, but she admitted to tasting it on multiple occasions.

To be fair to the professor, she did explain why she was interested in the saltiest waters. According to her, they are interested in the saltiest water because they are the oldest and tasting is the quick and dirty way to determine it.

Unbeknownst to Lollar, it would only be three years before scientists discovered what they believed to be even older water in the same region, believed to be at least 500 million years older than their discovery. It's unclear how the recent one tasted, but based on how bad the first one was, I'm assuming it's not very good, and probably saltier.

Is The Water Safe To Drink?

According to The Atlantic, the water isn't safe to drink. However, a sip won't kill you.

Does water expire? According to Healthline, water doesn't expire. However, bottled water often comes with an expiration date, typically two years or less from the manufacturing date.

It's not good to drink water from plastic bottles beyond the expiration date because plastic can begin to leach into the water, contaminating its chemicals, such as antimony and bisphenol A (BPA).

If ingested, the plastic compounds can slowly accumulate in your body and it could damage your gut health, and affect your immunity and respiratory function.

Also, bottled water that's carbonated will eventually become flat after losing its carbonation and developing an off taste.