One of the most unusual products on display at Sial was undoubtedly a new concept called L'Eau du Café/L'Eau du Thé, which was unveiled at the show. The brainchild of French designer Fabrice Peltier of the P'Référence agency, the product is intended to provide consumers with the water necessary for making the perfect hot drink. Peltier argues that if you are buying quality tea and coffee why put in ordinary water when that is the most important ingredient? Instead, he has come up with filtered waters that offer the right balance of acidity, minerals and taste profile for tea and coffee. The water is packed under sterile conditions into a stand up pouch which is placed inside a metal container. Consumers can then pour water from this snazzy looking metal container into their kettles and voila! The perfect brew. The cost of the metal container and first pouch is FFr100. Further refill pouches will cost FFr14. It may sound a bit far fetched ­ but a number of upmarket French retailers are interested in the concept. {{COUNTERPOINT }}