Make your own flavoured water

Make your own flavoured water It’s simple: add fruit, vegetables or herbs to tap or mineral water, leave to infuse briefly, and you’re done. According to VerbraucherService Bayern, making your own infusions allows you to control the sugar and calorie content. Here you’ll find seven ideas with no sugar, tips on steeping times and shelf life, what to look out for in shop-bought flavoured waters – and the quick fix from a can.

How to Make Infused Water

1. Choose your ingredients: For fruit or vegetables with a skin, it is better to opt for organic produce or to peel them; citrus fruits should be unwaxed.
2. Chop and place in a jug: it’s best to use a carafe with a lid so that no bits fall into the glass when pouring – or thread the herb leaves and pieces of fruit onto a kebab skewer.
3. Top up with water and leave to infuse: the flavours usually spread through the water within five to ten minutes; you can leave it to infuse for longer, depending on your taste.
4. Chill and top up: The mixture will keep in the fridge for about 24 hours; you can top up the jug twice.

According to the North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Advice Centre, bottled drinking water can be stored for a while provided it has been bottled hygienically and kept chilled. With bottles that are drunk from directly, bacteria from the mouth can get into the water – so drink it as soon as possible and clean the bottle thoroughly afterwards.

7 ideas for flavoured water

1. Lemon and lime: a splash of each into the mineral water – it couldn’t be quicker.
2. Mint and lemon balm: place fresh leaves in a glass.
3. Cucumber and mint: Slices of cucumber with fresh mint – a delicately mild and tangy flavour.
4. Watermelon and rosemary: a combination with a very intense flavour.
5. Orange and rosemary: if you like, add a pinch of chilli.
6. Raspberries, herbs and tea ice cubes: ice cubes made from frozen fruit tea, fresh herbs and frozen raspberries.
7. Ginger and lemon: Pour hot, but not boiling, water over thinly sliced ginger, add slices of an organic lemon, top up with water and leave to infuse – the longer you leave it, the stronger the flavour.

Quick version: Place berries or pieces of fruit in an ice cube tray, fill with water or chilled herbal tea and freeze; when ready, add two cubes to a glass and top up with water. Herbal and fruit teas also taste great on their own and served ice-cold, and a strawberry, a slice of lemon or an eighth of a pineapple on the rim of the glass makes it a real eye-catcher.

And what about juice?

According to VerbraucherService Bayern, a spritzer is a good alternative to flavoured mineral waters – almost any juice with 100 per cent fruit content is suitable. It still contains calories, however: with one part juice (40 ml) to four parts water (160 ml), a glass of apple spritzer contains 23 kcal, orange juice spritzer 18 kcal and redcurrant juice spritzer 27 kcal.

Flavoured bottled water: what should you look out for?

In the case of fruit-flavoured mineral waters, the flavour usually comes from added flavouring; if juice is included, it often accounts for only 5 to 10 per cent. If the name of a flavouring includes the name of a fruit, such as ‘natural apple flavouring’, at least 95 per cent of it must come from that fruit. Calories come from sugar, fructose or other energy-containing sweeteners; according to NDR, half a litre of flavoured water can contain up to 23 grams of sugar in some cases.

Water additives such as syrups or drops are also usually sweetened: in a market survey carried out by the North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Advice Centre, only one in eight products added to water contained no sweetening additives; in five of the seven sweetened products, sweeteners were responsible for the sweetness. The Consumer Advice Centre also points out that it is possible to become accustomed to a very intense level of sweetness.

The shortcut from the can

When you’re in a hurry: our Lime & Mint, Citrus and Pink Grapefruit flavours also get their taste from natural flavourings – and they’re not sweetened. According to the label, they consist of water, carbon dioxide, citric acid and natural flavouring, with 0 g of sugar per 100 ml. Two ideas from our mocktail menu:

Find out whether still or sparkling suits you better Sparkling or still; the table shows how much you should drink each day Fluid Intake Calculator. The website brings together everything on this topic Drink water.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

1. NDR, Health Guide: Flavoured water: Best made at home, as at 5 August 26, amended 4 September 26. ndr.de
2. Bavarian Consumer Portal (VerbraucherService Bayern): Fruit-flavoured mineral water, as at 18 August 25. vis.bayern.de
3. NRW Consumer Advice Centre: ‘Flavoured Water’ – water supplements containing sweeteners and flavourings, as at 29 June 2026. verbraucherzentrale.nrw
4. ACQUA REAPER: Product labels, as at 26 July.