We have fantastic tap water in the Netherlands, and so does Germany. I like the water that comes out of my tap better than the water that comes in the blue Spa bottles. But I know quite a few Germans who won't drink tap water and instead buy these massive bottles of water. One of them complained they couldn't find gigantic bottles in shops in NL (the largest is 1,5 liter) and she thought I was crazy for even suggesting that. But just because water is safe to drink doesn't mean it tastes nice. I know tap water is 100% safe in the UK but in certain locations there's water coming from the tap that's too disgusting to even brush your teeth with. But I'm sure if you grew up with it you'd think it was fine.
I do think people drink less water here, especially during winter. People over a certain age don't carry around water bottles and drink all day. Eating and drinking all day long is really considered to be a very American thing to do.
In my recollection, the whole water bottle trend started in the mid 90's. I remember thinking it was the weirdest thing for other students to be carrying a bottle of water around the school instead of just getting a drink from the drinking fountain.
That sounds about right. The water fountain was a thing throughout school, for me, until engineering school when they suddenly appeared. My bestie and I-- the only females in the class-- exploited the trend of people bringing coffee and water in bottles for our own entertainment.
We conducted a massive experiment on our instructor and fellow students to condition them to truly not believe we were drinking alcohol in class. We did this first by ostentatiously bringing "Irish Cream" flavored coffee from the machine, in machine dispensed cups, and asserting that there was real booze in it. The next week we did the same, except we made a big show of pouring it into our Thermoses. We'd offer it around, to be polite, and nobody took us up on an offer of a sip. The third week, we just started making coffee at home and adding that fake creamer that had "Irish Cream" on the label. We did this in front of our instructor and classmates before the class began. Week four, we just started showing up with the pre-mixed beverage. Except it wasn't the fake Irish Cream at all. We brought coffee from home and poured the booze into the Thermoses in the parking lot, mixing it up and getting mellow. "There's real booze in it," we'd say, but nobody believed us. The rest of the term was pretty mellow and I recall we both got straight A's.