Comment on Does Coke Zero taste different in the UK vs. the USA?
MurrayL@lemmy.world 3 days agoYes, I realise Coke Zero is not sweetened with HFCS or cane sugar. That knowledge is in fact central to my actual question: does Coke Zero taste different in the UK vs. the USA?
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Yeah, I was confused by the wording of the question. Wasn’t trying to weasel around the comment as much as I was trying to make sense of it.
I read it again. You seem to think that Coke Zero in the US is made to taste like HFCS because that’s what the US puts in regular soda? Because that’s not the case. Sucralose doesn’t emulate the flavour of HFCS or cane sugar.
Here’s a Wikipedia article on it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose
As to whether it tastes different, I suppose it might. Coca-Cola prides itself on a “secret recipe” known only to a few, but like a few other products that claim the same, this is mostly marketing. The “secret” to Coca-Cola is that, in the US, the company has the exclusive right to import the coca plant and extract from it. This process can be used to make the narcotic cocaine, and in fact Coca-Cola used to contain cocaine. It doesn’t now, but it does still contain coca extract, which no other soda from another company can do. I do not know how the United Kingdom regulates the coca plant. If they don’t grant Coca-Cola the right to use it, they cannot make US Coca-Cola in the UK, and they probably can’t import the safe, cocaine-free extract from the US, either. It depends.
So, I think your question should have less to do with how the beverage is sweetened or if the UK lets them make it the same way the US does. I assume the UK is your country, since Coke is made in the US (was invented there, in/near Atlanta, Georgia) so it’s kind of the baseline.