If you don’t want to bother watching, they essentially served Coke Zero to people ordering coke, and had an on screen ‘reveal’ of the trick.
To me this is just plain stupid. Coke Zero does not taste like regular Coke period. No amount of advertising will convince me otherwise. The reason it annoys me is I switched to Coke Zero a few years ago, and while I find it nice enough to drink, I would switch back to real Coke in a heartbeat if I could.
It makes me wonder just who do they think they are kidding with this advertising?
Coke Zero tastes like Coke to people who think Coke tastes like Pepsi tastes like RC tastes like Cola. People who don’t flinch when the waiter says, “No Pepsi, Coke.”
In other words, a hell of a lot of people. Maybe not you, but a lot. All they needed to do was edit the film and select which people to show you.
In my experience they not only taste different but also have a markedly different texture. Regular Coke makes makes my teeth feel different for a few moments; less slippery. Sugary soda in general feels kinda sticky when you’re accustomed to sugar-free soda.
Are there really a lot of people who can’t tell the difference in taste between different brands of cola? I always presumed that people who can happily switch between Coke/Pepsi/et al, just didn’t care, not that they couldn’t tell.
Yes, I am absolutely certain this is the case. I know it’s true for me personally - I could tell the difference if given one and then the other, but I really don’t recall the difference, and if you gave me a Sam’s Club cola and called it Pepsi, I’d believe you. If you called it Coke, I’d believe you. If you gave me Coke Zero and told me it was Coke, I’d believe you. (In fact, when I drink soda, I drink Coke Zero or Pepsi Max.) I could tell the difference, and probably accurately identify which was which if I had both in *front *of me, but I wouldn’t question being served a Coke Zero when I ordered a Coke (although sometimes I think I can tell I’ve been served a sugar cola when I ordered a Coke Zero; no way to tell for sure.)
It’s not that I can’t tell the difference, it’s that I can’t *remember *the difference. So I’m fairly indifferent.
And I know I’m not alone. I’ve worked more than one restaurant/concession stand which had a visible drink dispenser with one name on it that was running another name (or, more commonly, no name generic) through the line, and got, in nearly 10 years of waitressing, called on it exactly once. Now I absolutely believe people who say they’ve discerned the difference in a blind taste test, but I also believe there are lots of people who could couldn’t, and even more who could tell the difference in a blind taste test, but not in the wild, as it were.
I think Coke Zero tastes damned close enough to regular Coke. Then again, I don’t give a shit enough about most colas to have a real preference, barring preferring Coke Zero and Pepsi Max highly over Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi.
I have never understood those people. I have acclimated to Diet Coke (really I generally prefer water - I’ve found that going downstairs to the vending machine and getting a Diet Coke activates the ‘i got a treat’ center of my brain so I don’t have to go downstairs and get something way worse at the same machine) but it is NOT Coke and ugh Pepsi. (I do come from one of those places where “What do you want?” “A Coke, please”. “What kind?” “Orange.” is totally an acceptable conversation.)
Of course, Coke sent me to college. So fuck those assholes.
ETA - one reason people may be forgiving about fountain cola is that there’s so much variation there - we’ve all had the experience of getting a very syrup-rich (yay!) or water-rich (boo!) cup of soda from a fountain. Take into account the amount of junk in the lines and who knows what it’s supposed to taste like?
This is probably the difference. To regular coke drinkers the difference is immediate and vast. That’s why i drink sprite zero, i was never a regular sprite drinker so sprite zero is basically sprite to me.
I never cared, though. I drink any kind of cola for my caffeine dose (or Mountain Dew, when I really want the caffeine hit) but when I hit my 30s, I started drinking diet. Occasionally I’ll drink a regular one these days and I won’t practically wail about how sweet it is, unlike many people I’ve heard on the topic. Maybe it’s because I just treat it like a caffeine delivery system.
Coke Zero and regular Coke taste nothing alike, and I’m surprised by those that cannot tell the difference. Coke Zero tastes like there’s something missing, like sugar or something. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Diet Coke is just a nastiness that you convince yourself you are used to.
Meh. Coke and Pepsi are different enough that it’s not that hard to tell them apart like that. For a real challenge get someone to give you 2 samples of one variety and 1 sample of the other.
Coke in Australia is different to Coke in the US. We don’t use HFCS in any of our drinks over here, our Coke is still made with sugar. We can get imported soft drinks over here, and I’ve had US Coke - there is a noticeable difference, not so much in taste but in mouthfeel in general.
Coke Zero, as mentioned, is more of a middle ground between Diet Coke and “Real” Coke IMO. I prefer Zero, as it has less of a heavy “syrupy” taste than regular Coke in my opinion. This is only for canned, however. I find it’s harder to tell the difference between them from fountains, possibly because of the ability to mix the syrup/water ratios slightly differently - plus ice watering it down.
I drink both Coke and Pepsi. There is a difference betwen the two, to me Pepsi has more of a mellower, rounded spice kind of flavour to it, where coke is more acidic. Though I prefer Pepsi, I’m not so wedded to either that I’ll have the vapours if only one is available and not t’other. I have a can of Coke Zero right now because that’s all that was in the social club fridge this morning.
