Excellently put. Water (H2O) de-ionised, distilled into a clean glass vessel, has no taste and no smell. When such things as nitrates,nitrites, carbonates,sulphate-salts of calcium, iron, sodium etc get disolved in water, they influence the taste.Also many regions add fluorides( tooth protection-they say!)- and chlorine gas during the cleaning, sterilisation processes.These have an influence on the taste. My water tastes of coffee-sometimes it tastes of single belended malt whisky.Strange to think, but worth considering is that there are only a certain number of atoms available on our planet, they are recycled in the various carbon, nitrogen etc cycles. We probably are drinking water and eating food and may be built of atoms that were previously in a dinosaur!