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Confession time: For years, I knocked back a few bottles of Diet Dr. Pepper every single day. I eventually kicked it entirely — thanks to my wife — and even tried making my own with a SodaStream to save some money. But I never lost the craving for a crisp, effervescent sip. Enter seltzer water.

Over the past decade, millions of Americans have turned to seltzer, with brands like LaCroix, Polar, and Waterloo becoming grocery store staples. Name brands are expensive, and as costs keep climbing, store-brand seltzer is one of the easiest ways to save — but not all of them are created equal.

That's why we're here. At Stumptown Savings, my goal is to help you shop smarter by conducting regular blind taste tests. We've tackled everything from doughnuts to sushi, and this time we're pitting seven store-brand flavored seltzers from Portland-area chains against one another to find out which are truly worth your money.

We tested store-brand seltzer waters from seven Portland-area stores:

We take our blind taste tests seriously. The brands were hidden from our panelists until the very end. Since plain seltzer can be hard to tell apart, we tested two distinct flavors from each store: lime and grapefruit (though Fred Meyer only carried a lemon-lime option).

On the day of the test, my wife hid the labels with blue painter's tape and assigned each can a number. This let us crack open every seltzer fresh for the judges — ensuring peak carbonation while keeping the brands a mystery. Judges rated each brand on a 15-point scale: five points each for flavor and fizziness, grading the brand as a whole across both flavors. Once the scores were in, we revealed the names and prices, letting judges determine overall value and assign a final grade based on quality versus cost.

Before we dive in: sparkling water technically refers to naturally carbonated mineral water, while seltzer is filtered, purified water artificially carbonated with CO2. These names aren't regulated, though, and most brands slap "sparkling water" on the label regardless. Every product we tested was seltzer water — no matter what the can says.

Before the taste test, we asked Stumptown Savings readers which Portland-area grocery store they thought made the best seltzer water. Sixty-eight of you weighed in.

Which Store-Brand Seltzer Do You Think Will Win Our Taste Test?

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Albertsons/Safeway (10)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Costco (8)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Fred Meyer/QFC (9)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Target (2)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Trader Joe's (29)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Whole Foods (3)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ WinCo Foods (7)

Nearly half of you — 43% — picked Trader Joe’s. No other store even came close. Well, I have bad news for you. They didn’t come close to winning.

This was the last seltzer we tasted, and it divided the panel. Bill and I both appreciated the lime's intense fizziness — noticeably stronger than the grapefruit, a trend we spotted across many brands. (That gap comes down to how flavors are added: lime comes from a lightweight oil, while grapefruit requires a heavier oil and added emulsifiers, which blunts the carbonation.)

Claudia found both seltzers flat. The flavors were so subtle that several of us couldn't distinguish one from the other. Bill was the only judge who picked up a strong grapefruit note; Evangel said she couldn't taste enough of either flavor to tell them apart.

Underwhelming flavor, a split panel on carbonation, and a price that's higher than most of the competition — Whole Foods finishes last. 

Full disclosure: Safeway was out of canned lime seltzer the day I shopped, so I picked up a 2-liter bottle instead. The bottled version had noticeably less fizz than the canned grapefruit — a substitution that likely dragged this brand's score down.

That said, the low overall score mostly reflected my own reaction. When it was time to explain my overall score of 2, I was blunt: "I f*****g hated this. It was awful."

The grapefruit smelled like sickeningly sweet grapefruit oil and tasted chemically artificial despite what the label says. Both flavors went flat the moment the water hit my tongue.

My panel disagreed — loudly. Both Evangel and Claudia praised the Signature Select line, calling the aromas "authentic" and "complex." Claudia said the lime smelled like fresh lime leaves; Evangel compared the grapefruit to a sweet ruby red candy. In fact, Evangel gave the grapefruit one of the highest single-flavor scores in the entire test, impressed by its carbonation relative to the bottled lime.

This brand would have finished higher on panel consensus alone. It just had the bad luck of getting scored by me.

Trader Joe's threw us a curveball: the grapefruit is only sold in a 1-liter bottle, while the lime comes in an 8-pack of 12-oz. cans. That packaging inconsistency aside, the grapefruit flavor actually had more intense carbonation than the lime — the opposite of nearly every other brand we tested.

Claudia and I liked these well enough, scoring them 10.5 and 9, respectively. Evangel declared Trader Joe's lime her favorite flavor of the entire day.

"I think it's because it was so subtle and wasn't abrasive in any way," she said. "It didn't feel artificial. It was just like, ‘here I am.’" I agreed for the most part — my only knock was wanting a bolder lime punch.

Bill and Evangel were less enthusiastic about the grapefruit. Evangel cited almost no aroma and even less taste. Bill knocked it for lacking any sweetness. Both found these waters comparatively flat.

At $0.47 a can, Trader Joe's is also the most expensive option we tested — and you're not getting a lot of carbonation for that premium.

Fred Meyer's entry — also sold at sister store QFC — was interesting because it carried a lemon-lime rather than a straight lime. Going in, we knew one of the lime seltzers wasn't pure lime, but none of us correctly identified Fred Meyer as the culprit. Its fourth-place finish was driven almost entirely by that lemon-lime flavor.

The addition of lemon brought a brightness the other limes lacked.

"I actually thought this was the best-tasting lime of all of them, which is hilarious because it's not just lime," I said. Bill agreed. Neither of us, though, felt it was bubbly enough.

Claudia disliked the lime, saying it reminded her of Alka-Seltzer. The grapefruit won her over with a subtly sweet aroma and a balanced flavor.

Then there was Evangel, who gave Fred Meyer's waters 4 points total. "There's no flavor. Oh, what even is this?" she said of the grapefruit. "They put a flavor on the outside of this can. It tastes like nothing to me."

At $0.42 a can, it's responsibly priced — if not quite worth the compromise.