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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   3318 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 17, 2023

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Some things are nearly identical (I couldn't identify the difference between store brand and Uncle Ben's rice, for example) but other things, particularly processed foods, do have a noticeable gap. Offbrand cola is disgusting, for example.

Offbrand cola is disgusting, for example.

Lots of people share this sentiment, but I'll admit I personally never understood this. Maybe I've been lucky enough to encounter just good off-brand cola, but I've overwhelmingly found that off-brand is more than good enough compared to Coca Cola or Pepsi. I'm also one of the weird people who significantly prefers Pepsi to Coca Cola (and Diet Pepsi to Diet Coke) and also likes to flatten my colas first by shaking the bottle and letting it dissipate, so maybe I just have weird tastes in soft drinks.

If you like to flatten your soft drinks, there is no "maybe" about having weird tastes in soft drinks. They're not force carbonated because people just love the joy of bottles gushing if they're shaken up.

I just don't understand why people continue to put so much effort into making the experience of drinking something more painful and more likely to cause bloating and gas. With beer, I see the carbonation as an acceptable consequence of the brewing process that also serves as a helpful way of enforcing a speed limit in taking in the alcohol. But with soft drinks, neither excuse exists.

It's just a matter of personal preference. I find the carbonation increases the flavor experience and clearly a lot of other people do as well. Maybe you just have a more sensitive mouth/throat than other people which causes you to find carbonation more painful. I don't think most people would say carbonation is painful and it could just be your body not being suited for it. It's like how some people when eating Hershey's chocolate find it tastes like bile while others don't.

I find your point more understandable if you were talking about spicy food, some people love extremely spicy food. Spicy food causes pain/discomfort to a lot of people during and after eating. Do you find some people's preference for spicy food just as puzzling?

I find the carbonation increases the flavor experience

Yep. The carbonation produces carbonic acid in the water. That gives beer and soda the correct smell and taste. "Why does flat soda taste so bad?" Because the acid bite is missing.

Liking spicy food isn't nearly as ubiquitous as liking carbonated soft drinks. There's a pretty sizeable niche of people (a niche that includes myself) that really enjoys spicy food, but that niche is smaller than the pool of soft drink enjoyers, even that niche doesn't partake in spicy food all the time, at least not as often as soft drink enjoyers drink carbonated beverages. This is in a large part because even spicy food enthusiasts tend to acknowledge that the experience has a significant painful portion that needs to be managed, and that the pain is part of the point, unlike with soda.

I wouldn't be surprised if I do have more sensitive mouth/throat than most, though, since I tend to be more sensitive to texture in food than most people I've encountered. And I'll note that @DradisPing guessed correctly in that I absolutely have a sweet tooth.

There are dozens of us!

The carbonation makes the drink taste less sweet, Pepsi is sweeter than Coke, so I suspect you just have a sweet tooth.

I'm reminded of when someone did a big study of children's breakfast cereal. They compared generic and name brands.

After crunching the data they learned that kids preferred whichever one had more sugar.

Pepsi is slightly sweeter and has less acidity, which is why they can always be assured that in blind tests (where people have just a sip from a small paper sample cup) the majority prefer Pepsi.

Offbrand cola is disgusting, for example.

How do we know they are objectively worse than brand colas without using your prior exposure to brand colas?

Cola is flavored primarily with a mix of vanilla and cinnamon; off brand colas tend to overdo the vanilla at the expense of cinnamon, which to me has always been the primary flavor.

Pepsi’s 1893 which was discontinued a few years ago was made with actual kola nut and the original flavoring proportions was excellent. I wish I could find a real kola cola in the UK but sadly I haven’t yet.

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