Tab was better prior to the nutra-sweet blend reformulation in the mid 80s.
I had a 20 can a day Tab habit (addiction) that I finally kicked a year ago when I switched to Diet Coke With Splenda. Unfortunately, Coca-Cola pulled the plug about 6 months ago, and now drink Pepsi One.
To my mind, Diet Pepsi tastes much like regular coke. Diet Coke, on the other hand, tastes like ass. Ass and chemicals. Coke Zero tastes like Diet Pepsi, that is, kinda like regular Coke, but with less aspartame headaches.
Thus my 2 pack a week Diet Pepsi habit became a 3 pack a week Coke Zero habit.
Coke Zero uses aspartame, not splenda.
And it does taste very much like regular Coke.
-FrL-
To be complete, Coke Zero uses aspartame and Ace K, and the two sweeteners kinda balance out each other’s weak points. And I agree that Coke Zero tastes pretty darn close to regular Coke.
I agree that Diet Pepsi tastes much more like Coke than Diet Coke does. I also think Diet Coke tastes slightly more like Pepsi than like Coke, but it doesn’t taste that much like either of them.
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve had a Tab, but I do think it tastes more like Coke than Diet Coke does. Coke Zero definitely tastes more like regular Coke, but not quite because of the sweetner. I’ve gotten used to Diet Coke having that artificial sweetner taste, but I find I notice it much more in Coke Zero since I expect the flavor of Coke to come with the HFC (or sugar when I can get it) taste and feel.
Dude, it does. If I order diet Dr. Pepper in a restaurant, and get regular Dr. Pepper by mistake, I can’t really tell the difference. I have to figure out which it is by the texture and mouthfeel alone, which is a lot harder than you might think. I usually just send the glass back to get diet for sure.
I’m a diabetic, not a dick, by the way.
I am glad it tastes different, I can’t stand regular soda
Some sodas have expiration dates on them. Diet Pepsi is one of them. I normally enjoy Diet Pepsi.
I sometimes wondered if those dates were just a ploy to get you to throw out “old” sodas and buy new ones. I drank a few sips of some truly foul Diet Pepsi out of a can once only to discover it was expired by about 3 months.
Foul. Foul. Nasty. Foul. The dates are real.
I can’t drink regular sodas too much now that I’ve switched to diet. They’re just too sweet and sugary.
When the Coke scientists were making Diet Coke back in the 80s they couldn’t recreate the taste of Coke in a drink with artificial sweeteners. So they decided to create a completely new Coke branded beverage. 20 years on and untold millions of Coke R&D dollars has finally gifted us with Coke Zero…the taste of Coke without the sugar.
Of that I have no doubt, but I’m still going to have to disagree with you, though if you’re considering texture and mouthfeel as separate from taste, we might just be splitting hairs. The taste of regular Dr. Pepper dissipates a few seconds after swallowing, while the Diet version leaves behind a bad (to me) aftertaste.
I’m so used to the aftertaste of diet sodas that I can’t taste it anymore, which is probably why I have such a hard time telling the two apart.
Diet colas seem to fizz alot more than normal ones. Whazzatallabout?
I’m pretty sure the key advance was the approval of acesulfame potassium (Ace-K) for human consumption. Both Coke’s and Pepsi’s newest diet products (Coke Zero and Pepsi One, respectively) use a combination of Ace-K and aspartame.
By the way, it’s not that Diet Coke is Diet New Coke. New Coke was “un-Dieted” Diet Coke.
Snoops writes that Coca-Cola created Diet Coke without trying to make it taste like the original Coke. I don’t know if it’s because they couldn’t or because they wanted it that way. Diet Coke then became the #4 soft drink of America, behind Coke, Pepsi and Seven-Up.
Since it was so popular, it made little sense to change it.
Coke Zero is the diet product that the company pretends tastes like Coke Classic.
ETA: Crap! I was so close.
Back in the mid 1960’s, when Tab first came out, it had cyclamates in it for sweetening. To the best of my recollection, it tasted virtually the same as original Coca-Cola. My family would almost interchangably go between Coke and Tab because they were so similar.
Cyclamates were a good artificial sweetener. Too bad they were deemed unsafe.
Coke Zero is pretty close to the taste of the current Coke Classic, but of course, Coke Classic is only partially like the Coke of my youth. I still have to stop by Sams Club occasionally and pick up a case of Mexican Coke to remind myself what real Coke used to taste like.
Diet Rite Cola is far and away the best diet cola. Made with Splenda.
Wow, diet colas are a sub-culture all to themselves.
I tried one, once, in the 80s, never again.
Those of us in the rest of the world can choose to drink Pepsi Max - another diet cola (but not the same formula as Pepsi One or Diet Pepsi, apparently).
My drink of choice is Coke Zero, followed by Vanilla Diet Coke (if it is available), then Pepsi Max, then Diet Coke. I no longer like full-fat Coke/Pepsi at all.
Si
Diet Coke, yeah, but I find I can’t buy a bottle or can of Diet Pepsi and have it stay fizzy for more than a few minutes. That stuff goes flat quickly. (Oddly, though, Diet Pepsi Max stays fizzy.)
Call me loony, but I find Diet Pepsi actually tastes best just after it starts to go flat. Too long and it’s just as nasty as any other flat soda, but for a while it actually tastes pretty darn good.