It's not the water

While I was in Korea I was on a constant quest to find Diet Coke. Occasionally I would find it in a 12 ounce can but most of the time I found it as “Coke Light” in an 8 ounce can (I would usually buy two . . . I sure wish I could have gotten a 6 pack) or even as a fountain drink in a mall. There was something different about the Coke Light . . . it wasn’t Diet Coke but it didn’t seem like Coke either and since I was in another country I just attributed it to the water. I thought the same of the Coke you get in a glass bottle from Mexico . . . it always tasted different but good and I just thought it was the water. Well, turns out, they probably filter the water. Check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_Zero

Basically, Coke Lite = Coke Zero and they’ve had Coke Light in other countries for a while now without the Coke Zero brand. With a Diet Coke and a Coke Zero right in front of me I see that the Coke Zero is way sweeter and that’s the difference I was tasting in Korea. And, I’ve also read that the Coke in glass bottles from Mexico tastes different because it’s still made with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup (that may be different now since I haven’t had real Coke in a long time and presented with a bottle with Mexico I would just detect is as “really sweet”).

Sheldon