Discover the lesser-known story of Pure One, one of the most unique mineral waters in the world, dating back to the beginning of the 19th Century. But back in the early 1900s it wasn’t mineral water that they were looking for, the water was discovered completely by accident after the Bonithon Petroleum Company bored for oil.

What first began as an oil exploration in 1906, soon led to the discovery of warm mineral water, not oil, from a deep sealed well, 1,000m beneath the earth’s surface. The well had connected to the Matemateāonga Formation; a 3.6 - 11.6 million-year-old ancient aquifer deep beneath the earth's surface.

The water ran to waste until 1914 when the Tarawhata Hot Mineral Baths were established. This saw a 25-metre by 12-metre bathhouse built, which was used as a public swimming pool, as well as several private baths all of which were enclosed in the same concrete building.

The Baths were very popular with the public and in 1939 H. Reedman, an Egyptian herbalist, advertised the Tarawhata Mineral Baths as “the most modern in the Southern Hemisphere… which compare with the famous Kreusnach Tonic Springs in Prussia, credited with Miraculous Cures in cases of Rheumatism, Gout, Sciatica, Goitre and all Nervous Aliments as well as general Tonic for the System.”

The Baths remained extremely popular until they closed in the mid-1960s, which saw the historical bathhouse turned into a block of flats.

Mike Fahy and Coral Lambert bought the flats as a rental investment with the plan to knock down some of the old building and add two units to rent out, as most of the original building was beyond repair. Michael, with 25 years in the oil industry, began playing around with the Bonithon 1 bore and a life-changing discovery was made. "We just thought the well had been capped. We'd run the flats for six years and then one day, we came down here and started turning on valves. Bang. The water kept coming out. The smell of it was awful. The first thing we did was put a line inside the well, a tube down below it where it was leaking, fixed that up, and once we had the pressure there, we had something to go with." After two years of researching, the idea of re-establishing the old mineral bathhouse came to life.

Construction began in 1999 and The Bonithon Spa Health Co. Ltd (Mike & Coral), re-established the historical bathhouse to what it is known as today (Taranaki Thermal Spa), which saw its doors open to the public in September 2000.

Mike and Coral had the water further analysed and discovered that it was suitable for drinking as well. This saw the establishment of Pure One Mineral Water, the only known mineral water of its kind in New Zealand.

We are proudly New Zealand family-owned and operated and have been providing the local Taranaki community along with some of the wider New Zealand region with mineral water for just over 20 years. 2023 & 2024 sees our expansion and we want to share our hidden gem with you!

We've always known that our water is very unique, so we decided it was time to see where it stood in the world of waters and went to one of the biggest water events of the year, the Taste & Design Awards, held by the prestigious FineWaters Society. This year it was held in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain, with a six-judge panel of professional and experienced international water sommeliers and experts blind-tasting over 110 waters from 37 countries. We took out Gold in the Taste category, still, medium minerality.