The drinking bottles from Air up in the test

The start-up Air up wants to enhance the taste of tap water with natural fragrances. It recently raised 40 million euros from investors such as Pepsi. Startbase tested the Air up tasting pack.

People are known to like to deceive themselves. They continue to make meat-free products look like bockwurst, eat yoghurt that can only be classified as raspberry because of added colorings and flavorings and now also hold scented pads that smell of lime under their noses to make water taste like it.

Air up makes use of precisely this. Customers can put a scented pad of their choice on the mouthpiece of a curved plastic bottle so that the water in the bottle itself doesn't taste quite so boring. With this simple formula, the start-up has quickly become one of the most successful in Germany.

Fabian Schlang, Tim Jäger, Lena Jüngst, Simon Nüesch and Jannis Koppitz only founded their start-up in 2018. Since 2019, the flavor bottles have been available both online and in retail outlets such as Aldi, Müller and Rossmann. The company now has more than 170 employees.

The idea of flavoring water with fragrances alone seems to appeal to many investors. Following a financing round in January with a volume of 18 million euros, major investors such as Pepsi and Oyster Bay promised the Munich-based company a further 40 million euros in September. Customers are apparently also happy about a new way to cheat themselves. According to its own information, the start-up already supplies one million people in Europe and expects sales of 100 million euros over the next twelve months.

Why is the idea working so well in this country in particular?

Germans love tap water. This was revealed in a 2019 study by the Techniker Krankenkasse health insurance company. After coffee and mineral water, it is the most popular drink in the country. According to the study, almost 63% of Germans drink it every day. Younger people drink it even more often.

However, people are also increasingly reaching for sugary drinks or sweet sodas on the grocery shelves. The result: diabetes and obesity. And this is where Air up sees a gap in the market. "Healthy hydration as a delicious taste experience," the company advertises. But how well does the idea work in everyday life?

The Air up drinking bottle in the test

Packaging: The delivery arrives unproblematically after a few days in a cardboard box on the doorstep. The box has a chic, simple design with bright orange and purple tones. Unlike Amazon parcels, at first glance it appears to contain comparatively little waste.

The core product is a water bottle wrapped in paper. An attachment filled with smelling aromas is placed on the mouthpiece. The trial set contains one lime and one orange-passion fruit flavor. However, the waste production could still be improved here. They are each sealed in a plastic bag and packed again in a plastic pot.

Assembly: The bottle is easier to assemble than an IKEA shelf. A sheet of paper shows how the bottle works in simple sign language, and a small booklet provides information about the products and cleaning in several languages. The drinking straw and mouthpiece can be separated, but are already plugged together - so all you have to do is press the silicone of the mouthpiece into the opening, put the lid on and you're done.

Cleaning: The Chinese-made bottle smells a little musty when it arrives in the package. However, it should not be put in the dishwasher: the company warns in the instruction leaflet that this will shorten the product life. So it's better to clean it for a few minutes with hot water and a little mild washing-up liquid, then rinse it thoroughly with cold water and fill it with fresh tap water. This is relatively easy. Without the attached mouthpiece, the 650 ml bottle has a large opening and fits perfectly under any tap thanks to the curvature under the neck.

However, the straw is not so easy to clean. After a few days, rinsing with hot water is no longer sufficient. The plastic tube is not easy to clean by hand or with a sponge. Air up knows this too: three days after the order arrives, a promotional email is sent - a cleaning brush can be purchased from the online store for around six euros. An expensive extra.

Price: In general, the trial package including bottle and two fragrance pods may not be affordable for everyone. It costs around 35 euros online.

One pod should be enough for five liters of water. In other words, 1.5 to 2.5 days if a person drinks an average of two to three liters a day. If you reorder pods, you pay between five and nine euros per pack of three. You could buy an average of six one-liter bottles of cola for that. Or 16 limes, which you could simply squirt into the water yourself - and which probably wouldn't even take longer than putting the pod on the bottle.

Taste: If you don't think you can taste through your nose, you might remember a day in a café. Anyone sitting next to a smoker will enjoy their coffee with a slightly smoky note. Or if you are sitting at the dinner table with a snotty nose, you will hardly enjoy your meal.

This led Air up to his idea. The scent on the cushion suggests to the brain that you are drinking lime-flavored water, although it is actually just tap water. After all, smelling and tasting are closely linked in the brain: 80 percent of the taste we perceive comes from smells. This is called retronasal smelling. A few years ago, the two founders Lena Jüngst and Tim Jäger wrote their bachelor's thesis on the subject at the Schwäbisch Gmünd University of Applied Sciences. Together with their three friends, they created the company Air up based on their research.

What Air up's product lacks compared to tap water with real lime or orange is the fresh taste. If you tear open the plastic bags in which the scented pods are packaged, you are immediately struck by the extremely artificial smell. And the water tastes just as artificial. And this is not helped by the innovative on-off function offered by the company. By alternately pressing the pod down and pulling it up, the user is supposed to be able to decide for themselves when they want to use the flavor function and when not.

However, even when the pod is pressed down and deactivated, the water still tastes of artificial lime - as does everything else you drink immediately afterwards. The flavors linger on your tongue like a fuzz that you can't wash off.

Ingredients : The company provides little information about the ingredients on the packaging. Natural flavors are said to be hidden in the fragrance ring. When asked, this refers to liquid natural flavors that are absorbed in the pod through a carrier, similar to a sponge. These natural aromas are said to be extracted from real fruits, plants and spices. "Our flavors are specially tailored to our needs, but could just as easily flavor other drinks or teas. Just not as effective and healthy as ours," they say confidently.

It's not supposed to be unhealthy. According to the start-up, it's like walking past a bakery and inhaling the smell. There can be no side effects. The product is purely fragrance-based, making it harmless.

Lifespan: After around five liters, the aroma intensity in the sponge decreases. Air up therefore recommends changing the pod after around five liters to ensure the best possible taste experience. However, it is not dangerous to continue using the fragrance ring beyond five liters. Some customers would even use the pod for longer to avoid wastage. But even for them, the end comes at some point. "Since our flavors come from fruits, plants and spices, it is in the nature of things that the flavors unfortunately do not give off an infinitely long fragrance," says the company.

All pods are therefore also provided with a best-before date. The pod packaged in plastic is said to have a shelf life of around ten months.

Recycling: All materials used in the pod are said to be recyclable. However, the whole thing is still in the testing phase. "Apparently there are many different systems and we obviously want to try and understand all of them so that we can make the best possible product not only for our customers, but also for our planet," says Air up.

The bottle itself is made from Tritan, a robust and durable material. "We opted for this high-quality, BPA-free material because this plastic is reusable and therefore results in far less plastic waste," they tell Startbase. In addition, due to the lower transportation weight and volume compared to glass, more carbon-efficient logistics could be used, resulting in significantly lower CO2 emissions than with conventional soft drinks. "This is the main reason why we chose Tritan for our refillable Air up drinking bottle," says the startup.

Closure and suitability for everyday use: The closure is bombproof, even if the bus driver slams on the brakes or the bottle rocks back and forth in the backpack while cycling; better than many a thermal cup or bottle screw cap, which has already cost the lives of several laptops.

But despite the good taste, it feels uncomfortable to unpack the bottle next to your colleagues and suck on the straw with relish. It feels like you're at primary school if you're not so good with screw caps and half of it goes wrong. In everyday working life, a normal drinking bottle is a bit more aesthetically pleasing.

This is the Startbase conclusion on the flavored drinking bottles from Air up

The bottle has a nice design. The cap is particularly good, it holds securely. However, for the proud price of 35 euros, the product is overpriced. The fragrance pods are not convincing - they smell unnatural. Lime less than passion fruit - that may literally be a matter of taste. But the company still doesn't come close to tap water mixed with cut fruit. And if you drink it for five days, you won't be able to see it.

And so, after the test, the bottle ends up in the cupboard next to a bottle decorated with flowers from the Waterdrop brand. The Austrian start-up offers drops that dissolve in water, giving the water a real taste. The aim is to add certain vitamins and nutrients. Another player that wants to make tap water tastier for customers. But is that really necessary?