What does one-billion-year-old water taste like? One billion year old water understandably tastes "just terrible," scientist says. YOU know you were born to be a scientist when you find yourself drinking one-billion-year-old water just to see what it tastes like. Scientists from the University of Toronto found pockets of water that had been sitting 2.4 kilometres underneath the Earth's surface for more than a billion years. Canadian scientist, Barbara Sherwood admitted that she had tasted it. And not just once either but "from time to time." According to the earth sciences professor the water has the consistency of maple syrup and is much saltier than seawater. "It tastes terrible," she told the LA Times. It is much saltier than seawater. The water is transparent when it first comes out from the rocks it has been trapped between but quickly turns an orange colour as the minerals within it, such as iron, begin to form. The rocks the water is trapped in formed about 2.6 billion years ago on what used to be an ancient ocean floor. The scientists suspect that the trapped water could be remnant ocean water which got stuck as it moved through the cracks in the rock. The results of this discovery were published in scientific journal Nature last month.