Cool Water With A Kick Water Joe, A New Bottled Water With Caffeine, Gets Off To A Fast Start

Ann Landers has it all wrong. You don’t need to smell the coffee to wake up anymore.

You can get that needed morning jolt from plain water. Well, not “plain” water, but Water Joe, an odor-free, flavor-free, acid-free, carbonation-free blend of artesian water and caffeine that seems about to sweep the nation.

It was conceived by a Chicago mortgage broker who needed help pulling finals-week all-nighters as a student at Arizona State University but didn’t like coffee or colas. His invention hit Midwest markets in October, and today is selling 70,000 bottles a week in 15 states. It goes for about 99 cents per 16.9-ounce bottle.

And what surprises its 29-year-old inventor, David Marcheschi, is how people are using his stuff.

“I’ve heard a lot of people are making orange juice with it in the morning, or putting it in concentrated apple juice.”

An Omaha radio talk-show host used Water Joe to brew a pot of coffee, and described everybody at his station as walking around with double buzzes.

Wow. Is that healthy? A 16.9-ounce bottle of Water Joe has 70 milligrams of caffeine, about the same as a five-ounce cup of perked coffee, far below the 200-milligram jolt of two NoDoz tablets.

“Nobody’s ever said anything,” Marcheschi says. “It would take an awful lot of consumption to really get up there to risk levels. If you’re a heart patient, I’m sure your doctor would have suggestions.”

That’s right, says Miami gastroenterologist Robert Goldberg.

“There’s definitely some abuse potential,” Goldberg says. “I have no problems with occasional use of caffeine in situations where it might be indicated, but it needs to be used in moderation.

“And you have to be very careful if you have high blood pressure or cardiac disease.”

Pregnant women should also avoid caffeine, nutrition books say.

“I was looking for a healthier solution than coffee or colas,” Marcheschi says. “Our product doesn’t stain your teeth. It has no sugar, no carbonation, no acids.”

Although Marcheschi conceived Water Joe as a college student, it didn’t become a reality until two years ago, when a friend who owns a beverage firm got him together with the firm’s chemist, who devised a way of adding caffeine to water without its usual bitter taste.

“That’s our little trade secret,” Marcheschi says.

Marcheschi then teamed up with furniture manufacturer’s rep Chris Connor, 35, and with a Chicago area bottling company to market Water Joe. He tells grocers that, even though Water Joe tastes like plain water, he likes to see it displayed beside colas and other soft drinks, not with distilled waters, because it is for people seeking caffeine.

“College students have been a great market,” Marcheschi says. “Athletes pick up on it before workouts. Mountain bikers. And everybody else who doesn’t like coffee but needs to wake up.”

Marcheschi says he will never carbonate Water Joe. He might come out with a version with lemon flavor. Or he might not.

“Its uniqueness is that it’s just water,” he says. “If you add flavors, you limit your market.”

He says he’s amazed at how quickly Water Joe is taking off, particularly because he did no consumer research before launching it.

By autumn, Marcheschi hopes to quit his day job and promote Water Joe full time. Stealing an idea from the Ben & Jerry ice cream company, he is buying a brightly colored Water Joe van and plans to tour college campuses.

His slogan: “Meet your new study buddy.”

In the meantime, the warm weather suits him fine.

“I mean, when it’s a hot day, the last thing you want is a hot cup of coffee.”