Mexican vs. American Coke: Getting to the truth

[Chris Hennes]

Over at Serious Eats, Kenji Lopez-Alt really outdid himself this time: "The Food Lab, Drinks Edition: Is Mexican Coke Better?"

I suspect anyone reading this is at least superficially aware that Mexican Coke is made with sugar and that American Coke is made with HFCS: Kenji set up a daunting battery of tests to determine which tasters preferred.

SPOILER ALERT:

So, Coca-Cola Company, here is what you need to do to provide your valued customers with the ultimate Coke experience: Bottle American HFCS-sweetened Coke in Mexican Coke bottles, and just tell everyone it comes from Mexico. ¡Que refresco!

Anyone care to dispute his methods or results?

[slkinsey]

Makes sense to me. A triangle test including preference would probably have been a better method.

[JAZ]

Or there's this older article -- The taste of Coke is all in your head (which I posted about last December) -- that says essentially the same thing.

[Emily_R]

I'm totally with him. I'm frequent coke (zero) drinker, have successfully passed blind coke/pepsi taste tests, and have never been able to see what the fuss over Mexican coke is...

[Dakki]

Tests like this really ought to be done double-blind.

[EatNopales]

Over at Serious Eats, Kenji Lopez-Alt really outdid himself this time: "The Food Lab, Drinks Edition: Is Mexican Coke Better?"

I suspect anyone reading this is at least superficially aware that Mexican Coke is made with sugar and that American Coke is made with HFCS: Kenji set up a daunting battery of tests to determine which tasters preferred.

SPOILER ALERT:

So, Coca-Cola Company, here is what you need to do to provide your valued customers with the ultimate Coke experience: Bottle American HFCS-sweetened Coke in Mexican Coke bottles, and just tell everyone it comes from Mexico. ¡Que refresco!

Anyone care to dispute his methods or results?

Some major problems with his methodology....

1) He should have a control group of people who are not Coke drinkers. People tend to prefer what is sensory familiar to them, albeit marketing, packaging & other factors can change this. What his experiment may have proven is that people used to HFCS Coke prefer that absent other cues.

It also doesn't take to account how palettes grow over time. An American teenager might prefer an Oscar Meyer wiener over Parisian style chunky Pate... but perhaps in a decade of learning & growing that preference might flip around. A missing element of the study is to track the same people over time after being exposed to both types of coke.

2) As any pretentious wine drinker would assert... the drinking vessel makes a difference... the glass bottle may not just be a visual cue it might provide a different aroma hence flavor.

3) What bottler did the Mexican coke come from? There are notorious differences in carbonation & sweetness between the two major bottlers & the regional guys. One thing I have always prefered about coca cola bottled in coast Mexican states (for example Arca found in Veracruz) is that is intensely carbonated, and a bit less sweet than most coke. Whereas I am not a fan of coke bottled by FEMSA

[Athena1963]

I can't dispute the results but for my own palate, I've noticed that American Coke leaves an aftertaste that I don't get with Mexican Coke. I grew up on the pre-1980 sugar-sweetened Coke.

[AAQuesada]

I don't drink soda's at all really Except for the occasional mixed drink. I have to say it was quite a revelation to me when i went down to Panama for some work. The rum and cokes were great, and it's not the Ron Abuelo that is anything special. It took me a while to figure it out, but it was the coke with real sugar just paired soooo much better than what you usually get in the states, with the sugar based rum.

Keep in mind that not all Mexican Cokes are made with sugar, some combine sugar and HFCS. It all depends on where it's bottled.

[EatNopales]

I don't drink soda's at all really Except for the occasional mixed drink. I have to say it was quite a revelation to me when i went down to Panama for some work. The rum and cokes were great, and it's not the Ron Abuelo that is anything special. It took me a while to figure it out, but it was the coke with real sugar just paired soooo much better than what you usually get in the states, with the sugar based rum.

Keep in mind that not all Mexican Cokes are made with sugar, some combine sugar and HFCS. It all depends on where it's bottled.

Yeah and a couple more issues that make sweeping generalizations a problem:

1) There are at least 3 major HFCS producers in the U.S. and they follow very different processes. One of them has been found to leach Mercury into the HFCS (this came to light in a study on child behavior where the researches found that even though sugar shouldn't theoretically affect behavior.. the presence of mercury in mainstream U.S. candy & snakcs would alter & deteriorate brain function sufficiently to cause such observed behaviors)... in short... maybe the aftertaste is trace amounts of mercury or who knows what. How do we know what HFCS is purchased by which U.S. regional coca cola bottler?

2) How does the water supply in a locale afect the final product? In Mexico some bottlers use micro-regional sugar... others use a global blend.

etc., etc.,

[pennbrew]

Sodium bicarbonate is not used to add carbonation to soft drinks.