Dasani adds a small amount of salt, along with two other minerals, to give its water a clean, fresh taste after purification strips everything out. The company uses reverse osmosis to filter its water, which removes contaminants but also removes every naturally occurring mineral. Without adding something back, the result would taste flat and empty. The salt and minerals are there purely to make the water taste like water again.
What Happens During Purification
Dasani starts with municipal tap water, then runs it through reverse osmosis and nanofiltration. These processes are extremely effective at removing impurities, but they’re indiscriminate. Along with contaminants, they strip out the dissolved minerals that give water its familiar taste. The result is essentially blank water, close to laboratory-grade purity, with almost no dissolved solids at all.
If you’ve ever tasted distilled water, you know it doesn’t taste “like nothing.” It actually tastes oddly flat or slightly bitter. That’s because the trace minerals naturally present in tap water, spring water, and well water contribute to what most people recognize as a normal, refreshing water taste. Without them, something feels off.
The Three Minerals Dasani Adds Back
After purification, Dasani adds a proprietary blend of three ingredients: magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride, and salt (sodium chloride). The Coca-Cola Company labels these as “minerals added for taste.” Each one contributes a slightly different quality to the flavor profile. Magnesium sulfate adds a mild bitterness, potassium chloride contributes a faintly salty or mineral note, and sodium chloride rounds things out with the familiar taste most people associate with clean water.
This remineralization step also gives Dasani a consistent flavor no matter where it’s bottled. Since the source water is purified down to almost nothing and then rebuilt with the same formula, a bottle from one city should taste the same as a bottle from another.
How Much Sodium Is Actually in It
The amount of salt in Dasani is tiny. A standard 20-ounce bottle registers at 0 milligrams of sodium on its nutrition label, meaning the quantity is so small it rounds down to zero under FDA labeling rules. For comparison, a single slice of bread contains around 100 to 200 milligrams of sodium. You’d need to drink an absurd amount of Dasani before the sodium content became nutritionally relevant.
Testing shows Dasani has roughly 28 parts per million of total dissolved solids, which includes all three added minerals combined. Aquafina, Pepsi’s competing purified water brand, uses reverse osmosis but does not add minerals back. It tests at about 1 part per million of total dissolved solids and has a slightly acidic pH of 6.5. The taste difference between the two is largely a result of that remineralization choice.
Does the Salt Make You Thirstier?
This is a popular theory online, and it makes intuitive sense: a soda company selling water with salt in it sounds like a scheme to keep you drinking. But the physiology doesn’t support it at these quantities. Research on sodium and thirst shows that triggering the thirst response requires a 2 to 3 percent increase in the sodium concentration of your blood plasma. The trace amount of salt in Dasani is orders of magnitude too small to move that needle.
Sodium does play a real role in hydration, particularly during exercise. Drinking plain water after heavy sweating can actually suppress your thirst signal before your body has fully rehydrated, because it dilutes your blood sodium quickly. Adding sodium helps maintain the drive to keep drinking and improves fluid retention. But this effect requires meaningful amounts of sodium, like what you’d find in a sports drink or oral rehydration solution, not the imperceptible trace in a bottle of Dasani.
How Dasani Differs From Mineral Water
Despite having minerals added, Dasani is not mineral water. Under FDA regulations, “mineral water” must contain at least 250 parts per million of total dissolved solids and must come from a protected underground source like a spring or borehole. No minerals can be added to water labeled as mineral water. Dasani, at roughly 28 parts per million of total dissolved solids sourced from municipal supplies, doesn’t come close to qualifying. It’s classified as purified water with added minerals for taste.
Spring water brands like Evian or Fiji get their mineral content naturally from the rock and soil the water passes through underground. Those minerals vary by source and give each brand a distinctive taste. Dasani’s approach is the opposite: strip everything out, then add a controlled formula back in. Neither method is inherently better or worse for your health. It’s primarily a difference in taste and consistency.