The World of Coca Cola museum in Atlanta, GA has a room that lets you try the various Coca Cola beverages from around the world. It’s an interesting experience.
It can taste different in the same city / from different sources.
The water sources will be different (mostly filtered city water) and bottled, caned, fountain drinks at restaurants can all vary slightly due to many factors. In some countries different types of sugar/sweeteners may be used, the US has highly subsidies corn so in the us HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP is used, where you will see sugar listed in other countries.
Some restaurants will get the mix in bags, others in metal canisters this can impact taste on top of the equipment that mixes and carbonizes the mix.
This is only true for coke. Pepsi has centralized bottling. Coke does local bottling.
Points of bottled, vs canned vs the mix at the fountain all apply. Just not the local part.
Pepsi, I can’t say I can tell a difference over the years.
But Coke? Fuck yes. Coke used to have a much crisper taste back when I was a little kid. Then they did new coke in the 80s, and classic coke was different than what I had before that. Classic coke was absolutely not the same flavor.
So the original one was better I assume?
Oh yeah, much better.
You know how coke kinda coats your tongue and has that one note cola heavy flavor? Back then, the coating thing didn’t happen unless you chugged it. The flavor had depth, kinda like how a good root beer has layers of taste. Don’t get me wrong, it was still very cola dominated, but it was like the difference between instant coffee and a decent bean you grind yourself. Or like going from budweiser to a good craft ale, if you’re a beer drinker. Or maybe like Dr Pepper vs Mr Pibb
The original was a very yummy thing rather than a sugar bomb with a single flavor.
I do sometimes wonder if maybe the lens of memory into youth exaggerates the change, but I’ve met other people that have distinct memories of the taste as well.
I don’t hate coke as it is today, but it used to be better for sure
Thanks for the clarification.
I concur. It tastes sweeter and less refreshing than in the 80s. More syrupy now, with an unpleasant aftertaste. I just want to chug water ASAP after I drink one. Sadly, it’s hard to find Mexican sodas here. There’s one restaurant that sells them and the markup is high. We need the secret formula for Nostalgia Coke!!
Coke in Argentina and the USA (and probably many other countries) taste more sweet than the Coke in Europe/Spain.
Here in Spain regular Coke doesn’t taste that sweet so I end up getting the Zero Coke because it has no calories.
Same with Sprite and much more stuff. For example the Froot loops here they sell some version that has different colours and they are barely sweet compared to the US version.
Thanks for the replies everyone. May I ask one more thing, is it safe to assume, the coke that they serve in fast food chains like KFC and McD, they are diluted and having more sugar to save cost?
Yeah pretty much most bars and restaurants will use a mixer gun for providing soft drinks. It’s usually carbonated water and it will inject syrup for coke, pepsi, sprite etc at regular intervals. The syrup is just a box from the drink company that they have hooked up to pipes out back
I think they taste different with corn syrup versus sugar, and in plastic bottles versus glass bottles.
