What your rehydrating has been missing. Photo: Reefill

So what if New York City has the “Champagne” of tap waters? Reefill is the latest start-up hoping to disrupt the antiquated model of drinking water. The plan: Give paying subscribers access to Bluetooth-enabled water fountains that still dispense the city’s beloved tap water, but which has been chilled and filtered by Reefill.

It’s still early days for this company, but right now, for $1.99 a month, you can use any of eight different Reefill machines in and around the West Village. The premise is to “ditch bottled water for good,” which does sound ecofriendly and more convenient (who likes lugging a liter of Poland Spring around?). But it sounds like people are going to take some convincing:

Dystopia is here, and increasingly more evenly distributed pic.twitter.com/BLj2oFcPtk — Joseph A. Howley (@hashtagoras) February 4, 2018

#New York City water doesn't need to be filtered and citizens have already paid for it, that's what. https://t.co/feKiUY6Y10 #green — stirling boy (@stirlingboy) February 7, 2018

I'm actually more disturbed by the "reefill app" vs the cost (as bad as that is).



I'm just imagining a future of like "download the reefill app now and your first 10 glasses of water are free!*



*additional fees for the water to not be sewage may apply https://t.co/Dwjb7dTUt0 — Azure, the Interim Prime Minister of Canada 🌼 🛡️ (@aguyuno) February 5, 2018

Reefill Plus - Cut queues with stations available only to plus members.($2.99/mo.)



Reefill Premium - Full access to the Reefill app. Share your water-drinking stories with your friends! ($4.99/mo.)



Reefill Turbo - Exclusive access to the top-rated filtered water. ($9.99/mo.) pic.twitter.com/pnQD8lkMfu — Seo (@Kaneryyy) February 6, 2018

ICYMI: NYC tap water is healthier, cheaper and better for the environment than bottled water—no app required. 💁 https://t.co/Q0bxhsAYWe — NYC Water (@NYCWater) February 6, 2018

In reality, Reefill’s machines have two dispensers, one for subscriber-only filtered water, another for regular New York City tap water. The service was meant, secondarily, to help solve the city’s dearth of drinking fountains, and so far Reefill’s co-founders have sold NYU, Think Beyond Plastic, and the New York Public Library on the concept. One of them told BuzzFeed yesterday in an interview that they were “surprised by the strong backlash” online, because they look at their glorified water fountains and see “this great new thing.”

Next to Live Water, the Bay Area start-up selling “raw” spring water in $40 jugs, Reefill comes off pretty reasonable. But BuzzFeed tested a subscription, and in a blind test, staff mistakenly chose the plain tap side as the two-buck option — turns out, the electrical cord that chilled the filtered kind had accidentally been unplugged. Growing pains!