richest families

‘Luxury water’ a growing trend among world’s privileged. What is it?

‘Luxury water’ a growing trend among world’s privileged. What is it?

Monsoon rains have finally passed and floods blocking the lone dirt road have retreated enough for a small truck to climb these Himalayan foothills to a gurgling spring. It spews water so fresh that people here call it nectar. Workers inside a small plant ferry sleek glass bottles along a conveyer. The bottles, filled with a whoosh of this natural mineral water, are labeled, packed into cases and placed inside a truck for a long ride. Ganesh Iyer, who heads the operation, watches like a nervous dad, later pulling out his phone, as any proud parent might, to show the underground cavern the waters have formed in this pristine kingdom, the world’s last Shangri-La. This is no ordinary water. It will travel hundreds of miles to some of India’s luxury hotels, restaurants and richest families, who pay about US$6 per bottle, roughly a day’s wage for an Indian laborer. Millions of people worldwide don’t have clean water to drink, even though the United Nations deemed water a basic human right more than a decade ago.