There have been a number of taste tests that show that, when blindfolded, most people can't distinguish between Coke and Sprite, let alone Coke and a close imitation, without the visual cue: throw together enough sugar, acid, and carbonation, and it overwhelms the body's ability to distinguish taste. It's a story often repeated in marketing (like Twitchells' Branded Nation), because forging a distinction between indistinguishable parity products is marketing's job.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1982/0...

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natdempk 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think if you believe this I'd recommend trying it yourself.

I've done this blinded with colas, and it's pretty easy to tell the difference between Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Pepsi, and Diet Pepsi. You might not know which is which without some history drinking them, but they all taste very distinct by themselves.

Really disagree that these are indistinguishable parity products, or that most people would not be obviously able to tell the difference between them.

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rootusrootus 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I'll say that the 'Zero' products have gotten quite good. Not indistinguishable, but closer than I expected. On a couple of occasions I've inadvertently purchased real Dr Pepper instead of Dr Pepper Zero and not realized I was drinking the real thing. That's high praise for the Zero version (notably, the Diet version of Dr Pepper, while it has a following of its own, is extremely unlike real Dr Pepper).

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Imustaskforhelp 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't know but I recently drank coca cola which my brother ordered and then after a few days, I decided to drink diet coca cola because I was discussing it with my brother and he mentioned that diet and normal coke are the same price and I started wondering if there are negative effects to normal coke and not much for diet coke and they both are same price and I am drinking it for the taste, then diet coke makes the most sense so I decided to order it

Not sure if its just me though but after drinking both diet coke and normal coke the taste gap between diet coke and normal coke felt really huge to me.

You mention about Dr pepper and how strikingly similar Dr Pepper zero is, what are some other drinks which have a genuinely similar.

But now realizing this, I think that there is a difference between diet, zero and normal variants, this is the first time I am discovering this. Time to drink coke zero and coke but the winters are really cold so I might have to wait this winter season

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epolanski 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Diet coke is much cheaper to produce, sugar is the most expensive part of coca cola by far.

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rafabulsing 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can confirm, could never stand the taste of Diet Coke, but Coke Zero tastes pretty close to the original to me! To the point that I pretty much never drink regular Coke anymore, if Coke Zero is available. There's basically no downside to going with Zero, imo. And the upside of no calories is pretty great.

	▲	plasticsoprano 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That’s because Diet Coke is not based on classic Coke. It’s based on new coke, it should really be called diet new coke. Coke Zero is based on Coca Cola classic.

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rcxdude 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

IIRC, the diet versions of pepsi and coke are deliberately a bit different, while the zero ones are trying to taste the same as the regular ones.

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epolanski 7 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I can't drink normal coke, it disgusts me, leaves an unpleasant sensation on my teeth, probably the sugar, but love the zero. It's also zero cal, which is a huge bonus.

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mattmaroon an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That link actually clearly says down in the body that they could pick the lemon lime out from the colas, which makes sense.

Throwing together sugar, acid, and carbonation does not overwhelm your sense of taste. Thats most bottled beverages. If you believe this, you should see a doctor.

But many beverages are very similar to other beverages. It’s not an inherent flaw in taste perception that Coke and Pepsi taste alike to most people, it’s that one was intentionally made to be only slightly different than the other.

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spyckie2 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is irrelevant and misleading. Just because many people cannot tell flavors apart doesn’t mean that the products are parity and are marketing differentiated.

Sure the majority of people cannot tell flavor notes apart but there exists a certain % of the population that can very reliably distinguish different tastes. Wine sommeliers, fine dining, food science are all professions which require a sensitive palate and smell and it is an over simplification to talk about sodas tasting the same for the majority of people as if it implies there is no difference or speciality in crafting taste.

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knallfrosch 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Most people prefer Pepsi's taste. Unless the brands are revealed, then the brand recognition sets in and your brain rewards you more for choosing Coca Cola (c)

So you can taste it, but that doesn't matter in the end.

	▲	kadoban 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Last I recall, you get different answers if you taste just a sip verses a larger amount. Pepsi has a good first taste, but after a couple of sips it's pretty overpoweringly sweet, even compared to other sodas.
	▲	pests 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Their example wasn't even Coke vs Pepsi but Coke vs Sprite.

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hinkley 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Supposedly Jell-O was originally to be clear but they needed the food coloring to convince your brain you weren’t just tasting sugar and citric acid instead of the little bit of flavor they added per recipe.

	▲	Loughla an hour ago \| parent [-]
		All Jello tastes the same, and that's a hill I'll die on. There are no flavors.

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pixl97 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yea, you've never drank the off brand stuff I see. It's generally significantly different to me.