Sorry, no matter what the benefits, that just does not look pleasant to me. It's evocative of something rather... unappetizing.

@A.Stams - I know what you mean; like a giant stick of licorice, right?

We bought a nice glass beverage dispenser from World Market and put it out in the kitchen to remind ourselves to drink more water. We bought 1/2 lb. of binchotan charcoal online and just put a piece in the water overnight to absorb the chlorine taste in our city tap water. It really works just as well as a Brita and you can remove it after a few hours if you look it looks too strange for guests.

I'm with a couple other commenters -- this is unattractive and unappealing to me. Here's a lovely pitcher...with a gigantic log of coal in it. I'll stick to transferring water from a purifying pitcher to a serving pitcher.

@sygyzy: Yes, licorice, exactly. Stinky licorice.

No dildos in my water pitcher, thanks.

OMG I was just gunna say this looks like a dildo dropped in my water pitcher.................

Uh oh! Grandma dropped a deuce in the water pitcher again. What wacky monkeyshines we get up to at our place at Easter!!

I think it looks striking and sculpturally post-modern. I dig it.

I'm on the fence about the "presentation." But I like that you can easily repurpose and reuse when it's purification properties are gone. Unlike Britta and pur which add to the landfill. That DWR pitcher is nice but too pricey.

It looks really off-putting.

And I'm not going to worry too much about my Brita filters adding to the landfill, given the mountains of plastic water bottles that are ditched every day.

I think it looks real cool, but then again I'm weird in that I like "earthy" things. It also puts the Binchotan anime theme song in my head.

When did people become too good for tap water? Ah, the rich environmentalists and their first world problems.

Wow, what a bunch of cranky comments on this one! I love this idea. I think the Binchotan coal looks really cool, striking, and modern and I really love the fact that it's completely biodegradable. Doing away with the plastic casing that so many water filters use is one thing but to make a product that has a second use after it's spent is just plain awesome.

@kentucky16 -- I always drank water straight from the tap and I never understood all the people who filtered all their water until I moved into my current place. The water in this neighborhood is so horrendously unpalatable (even though I was previously living only 5 minutes away with perfectly fine tap water) that I eventually relented and bought a water filter. Also, tap water might taste better everywhere if more people/governments/industries actually thought the environment should be something to care about.

We don't filter our water, but go visit some 'bad water' parts of the USA to understand why some people hate tap water. So far, imo, the Orange Cty/Anaheim area wins for the most undrinkable tap water ever. But we've had some gross water in parts of the Midwest and South, too. If I lived in those places, I'd be filtering or paying for water delivery, too.

Count me as a vote for the coal, if I was going to filter water...I think it's pretty neat.

The appearance would not bother me, and I do like the fact that it is biodegradeable.
I don't have any need for it at the moment - I drink tap water and I think it's fine (although I do have a soda machine at home and the fizz makes the tap water taste better).

@kentucky16 - I always drank tap water until I moved to a place where the tap water had particles and a bad taste I didn't want to identify. Since filtering water was good enough for ancient Egyptians, I don't feel so bad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_filtering

Highly highly recommend. Go out and get some of this stuff as soon as you can. Been using this stuff for 4 months and can't imagine being without it. Hated the britas (plastic, always refilling) and don't really trust the in-counter filters plus the water never really tasted all that much different.

With this stuff, it's easily noticeable. No chlorine smell and the water just tastes great. The water also has a great feel (weird, I know but not sure how else to describe it).

No need to get the fancy pitchers. $11 for about 10 sticks at a japanese hardware store. Two big glass pitchers with covers for around $12 each and then a bunch of blue glass water bottles to drink out of (easy to place around the apartment, look great, plus you can keep track of your water intake without making a big deal of it).

I've doubled my daily water intake without really thinking about it by almost reflexively reaching for the bottles when I'm near.

It's not going to change your life mind you but you'll like drinking water more and get a bit further away from plastic and other bad things in and around your water with little cost and very low friction.