The Great Cola Tasting

The Great Cola Tasting

"One cola to bring them all and in the taste buds bind them."

Another episode of my super-awesome blind tasting! You all might remember the previous tastings (cognac, vodka and herbal liqueur). This time I took it to a completely different level. I present you The Great Cola Tasting! 

We've all heard stories how we can tell the difference between coca-cola and pepsi and "how they taste so different". Well I wanted to make a very half-scientific test to see how well my friends could tell these products apart.

SCIENCE

To ensure maximum fairness/objectiveness, I had to make sure (at least) three obvious things:

• All products were in cans of the same size (standard size)
• Different manufacturers or different products from one manufacturer were used
• NO peeking from others' papers!

So my list included the following (in alphabetical order):

1. Coca-cola
2. Coca-cola light
3. Coca-cola zero
4. Freeway cola (lidl brand)
5. Freeway cola light
6. Pepsi
7. Pepsi max
8. Pepsi next
9. Pirkkacola (a Finnish brand)
10. Rio cola (a Finnish brand)

A serving of ~4cl (~1.5 fl oz) was used. Half of the colas were sugar-free: #2, #3, #5, #7 and #8, respectively. 

FUN

Of course we have to keep in mind that this test surely doesn't prove anything much. But maybe, just maybe something interesting will be discovered from this tasting. Nonetheless, it was an event with friends and a fun tasting to make and that's the bottom line. My main interest with the products lied in finding out whether my test subjects friends could at least tell regular coca-cola and pepsi apart. But in the end another exciting thing was pointed out, which I will explain later, too.

SCORING/AFTERMATH

Scoring was pretty straightforward but with a twist!

• Correct answer = 1 point
• Wrong answer  = 0 point
• TWIST! If a person ticked the "knowledge" box next to the answer line meaning that person really knows what the content is, that person is awarded two points for a correct answer but should that answer be wrong, s/he loses one point!

So knowledge pays off big time! The maximum score thus being 20 points. In addition, as a "bonus" question in the very end should there be a tie I asked the following question:

Q: "In what year was coca-cola first launched?"

A: 1886

Here are the final results:

A heart symbol represents one's "favorite" and a cross equals "a bad flavor"; was a non-mandatory task and purely for entertaining purposes should one product get multiple hearts/crosses.

OUR WINNER WAS MIKKO, who beat Heidi with a closer bonus question answer! Congratulations!

Just to clarify the color meanings, green means correct answer, red means wrong answer, grey means "knowledge" answer but wrong, blue means "knowledge" answer and right.

So let's study this chart a little bit:

• People were in good knowledge when it came to Pepsi or Pepsi Max and 6/8 knew Rio cola from the others (it does taste more citric and makes a clear exception)
• Pirkka cola was clearly identified as a "cheap brand", 6/8 thought of it as other than a product from the coca-cola/pepsi family 
• This was really a hard tasting as the winner "only" got 4 points (!)
• Only one was brave enough to tick the "knowledge" box.

Some said afterwards that it is much easier to tell a (distinct) difference between say, two colas when you drink them in rapid succession. But when you have a generous measure of ten different colas it became clearly more difficult a task to do.

PICTURE GALLERY

THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL

Of course this tasting wouldn't be as much fun had there not been great prizes to win! The winner received a bottle of Fentimans Curiosity Cola uuuuuuhh!!! Moreover, excluding the winner one lucky loser picked by the winner received a can of raspberry flavored Hello Kitty Star Drink woooooo!!!

And a cool medal made by my wife was awarded to the best three contestants!

Summa summarum, just like with the other tastings I've made before, well at least I had a good time! :) Perhaps we learned a valuable lesson after this...or perhaps we didn't. Who cares, a lot of cola was drunk!