At my office, we have refrigerators stocked daily with free drinks. I’ve been drinking tall glass bottles of Coca-Cola for the last month and absolutely loving it. But yesterday, the bottles were all gone and I was forced to open up a can instead. What immediately startled me was how different the canned version tasted. It was sour and left a nasty aftertaste in my mouth. Had I been spoiled by the glorious bottle version? I’d heard claims that some people detest canned drinks because aluminum allegedly adds a metallic tint. But here I was, can in hand. My taste buds weren’t lying.
I grabbed a bottle of Coke for a lunch meeting today and ended up making small talk with a client about the taste of Coke. He told me that the metallic taste in the can was only half the problem. Because the glass bottles were imported from Mexico, they didn’t use high-fructose corn syrup like American drinks. Instead, the Coke I was drinking used pure cane sugar. Ah… so that was the difference.
I found myself wondering how different other American drinks taste in other countries. In any case, if you ever go to a local Mexican grocery store, try some Mexican Coke. If you check the ingredients label, it will say ‘sugar’ rather than ‘sucrose’ and ‘glucose.’ The taste is amazing.
