Chicago — Monique Durand, trained to discern even a whiff of acidity or woodiness, took a sip, wrinkled her nose and spat it out.

"Too salty," said Durand, one of three judges who presided Tuesday at the fifth annual competition to determine the nation's best-tasting . . . tap water.

To claim bragging rights for the best-tasting water that comes from a faucet is no small feat in a nation that guzzles some 9 billion gallons of bottled water a year at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. And the winner of the 2010 Best of the Best honor, bestowed by the American Water Works Association, went to Stevens Point and its public water utility.

"We couldn't be prouder," said Andrew Halverson, mayor of the central Wisconsin city of 25,000.

The Water Works trade group has chafed for years as bottlers deploy their considerable advertising budgets - often with images of ancient springs and arctic glaciers - to imply that bottled water is superior to tap water. In fact, association officials say, most bottled water consists of refiltered tap water.

The association has presented its Best of the Best national taste test since 2005 in part to counter the stigma against tap water. The finals at the annual trade show, held this year in Chicago, followed semifinal and regional tap water taste-testing competitions held around the nation. Twenty-one other finalists competed Tuesday, the field narrowed to five after the first round of judging, and then to the 2010 winner.

Stevens Point's water utility, which delivers its award-winning water from groundwater wells, was already euphoric in September when it won the state finals in Lake Delton, beating out the Milwaukee Water Works with its Lake Michigan origins.

"We put up a banner on Highway 51, by the fire station," when Stevens Point won the Wisconsin title, said Kim Halverson, director of the city's water utility and the mother of the 32-year-old mayor.

To her, it's a matter of local pride that Stevens Point Brewery - in existence since 1857, before the city was founded - uses local water to brew blue-labeled Point Beer, known locally as Blue Bullets.

But the town's bragging rights suddenly got much bigger. Stevens Point beat out New York City, which draws water from the Catskill Mountains, as well as Silverdale, Wash., which uses water from a 1,000-foot-deep aquifer that's so pure the utility pumps it directly to homes without treating it.

Stevens Point, whose town motto is "City of Wonderful Water," already knew it beats bottled water on cost. By its own reckoning, the utility brags that its ratepayers receive award-winning water so inexpensively that it's almost free: A Stevens Point resident can refill a 20-ounce water bottle every day for 17.5 years for the same cost as a single bottle of $1.49 water. "If the 20-ounce bottle costs more than $1.49, it would be longer (than 17.5 years)," Mrs. Halverson said.

Few know it, but the federal government doesn't even regulate bottled water with the same stringency as it does water utilities, which must furnish regular quality reports. While the Environmental Protection Agency regulates tap water, a different agency, the Food and Drug Administration, sets standards for bottled water.

According to Water Works Association spokeswoman Deirdre Mueller, the FDA doesn't even require bottled water to reveal the source of its water, allowing marketers to refilter tap water and mark up the price by a factor of a thousand.

At the McCormick Place cafeteria during the trade show, a 20-ounce bottle of Aquafina cost $3.25, with a label stating that it originates from "public water sources."

Bottled water is already upending the water-technology industry, forcing utilities and water-engineering companies to invest heavily in the "aesthetics of water," the association said.

"The past 20 years have seen major advances in the study of tastes and odors in water," such as the organics and chemicals that influence taste, an association study said.

The group has a standing body of scientists and industry engineers called the Taste and Odor Committee, which furnished the panel of three judges for Tuesday's national finals.

"This is exactly the same as wine tasting," without the possible inebriation, said Pinar Omur-Ozbek, a professor of water engineering at Colorado State University and one of the judges.

Just as some can tell a Coke from a Pepsi in a blind taste test, or for that matter a Sauvignon Blanc from a Chateauneuf-du-Pape, the association adopted its taste standards from wine and beer taste competitions, said Durand. Durand holds a master's degree in water engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

For the contest, water is served at room temperature because cold temperatures mask some unwelcome tastes. Criteria cover a wide gamut, from bitterness and ozone to dryness and aroma. Judges drank from glasses identified only by a number. Each of the tap water samples was scored on a scale of one to 10.

Asked to resample Stevens Point water after the winner was named, Omur-Ozbek said: "It has some hardness; it has minerals but no objectionable, off flavors. But it is a little drying at the end."

As with wine, judges have no qualms about spitting. "If I like it, I swallow," Omur-Ozbek said.

Because Stevens Point draws its water from wells, not a lake, it is endowed with traces of a mineral taste, the judges said. "It has a nice balance of mineral content," said Durand, a water engineer in Hollywood, Fla., at the Hazen and Sawyer water technology firm.

One thing that Tuesday's award makes clear: Wisconsin has good aquifers. In each year since 2005 that Wisconsin has held a state competition, Wisconsin's regional winner has always been from groundwater, said Rosalind Rouse, a water marketing specialist. Milwaukee competes each year but has not yet won the state title, Rouse said.