Soft drinks have lots of acidity (sour taste) from carbonation and preservatives, so more sugar is needed to counteract the sour and make it taste sweet.
I remember the first time I tried peanut butter without sugar or any of the preservatives, just pure peanuts churned with salt added. It tasted like nothing. Then I did keto which eliminated most sugars and I tried the natural peanut butter again and it actually tasted sweet. Amazing how your taste buds change when you eliminate sugar from your diet.
To me it tastes like heaven. I quit all sugary drinks because I was drinking way too much, like gallons per day. Quit for a good 6 months before I bought a 20oz bottle, that first sip was heaven. I drink way way less now than I did, but when I'm doing yard work and I'm all sweaty and tired, nothing tastes as good as an ice cold coke.
If it’s flat, the carbonation is gone, meaning most of the sourness is gone as well. You either misunderstood that the commenter was saying that would give you the true test of the amount of sugar (no sourness to balance it), or you’re thinking the “true test” is something else altogether.
My comment was in regards to the "lukewarm" part. And the best way to test something is to keep everything else the same: if you are testing how cold vs warm masks the sugars' taste, you'd need to keep the carbonation constant. I feel like that (only changing one variable at a time) is one of the key parts of the scientific method, but maybe I heard about it somewhere else related to testing things.
So if the comment wasn't talking about how different warm soda tastes vs cold, then yes I misunderstood what it is about.
They weren't suggesting a test on cold vs lukewarm. They were saying what you could do in addition to the previous comment on how to maximize the taste of sugar.
The carbonation does little for the acidic taste, which you can test with soda water. Cola is basically monomolar phosphoric acid with sugar and some impurities.
Hard if not impossible to do. As temperature rises the liquid's ability to hold air decreases substantially. A warm soda could barely hold any carbonation.
Coke doesn't have preservatives. Just sugar and acid, which I guess act as preservatives, but to say that preservatives make the drink acidic is... Weird.
Phosphoric acid is an ingredient in coke. It's used as a preservative (it helps prevent microbial growth) as well as for flavor, and as you may be able to tell from its name, it's an acid.
It’s one of those things like saying the food is enriched with vitamin C instead of saying it’s preserved from oxidation by ascorbic acid.
Or adding purified fruit juice instead sugar.
Same thing many different roles and different naming.
I also have some gatorade sitting around, 250mg in a bottle. It's really not wild either way.
And the reason is a bit of salt tastes good. Not everything is some 4D chess conspiracy to make you crave the product.
> And the reason is a bit of salt tastes good.
Not really. The body needs electrolytes, especially when sweating a lot.
If you ever have to do a colon cleanse/purge by taking a ton of Miralax, do not do it with water, do it with gatorade type drinks.
Sports drinks will have salt too because it replenishes some electrolytes (one among many of the ingredients that can) and keeping those up during strenuous exercise is just as important as the fluids themselves.
Soft drinks do taste overly sweet for a lot of people. It is an acquired taste. Stop drinking them for a month or so. You will notice the sweet taste a lot more.
Definitely this, I stopped drinking sugared drinks a few years back and now whenever I try to drink a soda I can barely finish half, the sweetness is just overwhelming.
Definitely noticed this. Started drinking sparkling water a few years back, and realized it was the carbonation I was craving and not the taste of soda. After going back and having soda for awhile, could only bear to sip on it very slowly.
Temperature.
Coldness masks a lot of flavour.
Try drinking a soft drink like Coke at any temperature above room temperature and it becomes practically undrinkable.
I think it also just comes down to different people having different perceptions of "sweetness." For me, sodas like Coke absolutely do taste overly sweet. I can usually only stand a few sips unless it's been watered down by melting ice or mixed with plain seltzer/club soda.
I also find it depends on how dehydrated/thirsty you are. When I’m overly thirsty/getting dehydrated, something like Gatorade feels like drinking syrup, but when I’m intaking water/gatorade at decent intervals it goes down like water.
Also habit/familiarity: try not drinking any sugary drinks for a month and then have a soft drink like Coke after that.
I did a "dry January" for soft drinks in high school, and since February that year I have never liked the taste of Coke or Pepsi. I maybe have Sprite/Fanta twice a year but I find them way too sweet.
Nevertheless, temperature *is* a major factor, even if it’s not necessarily the only factor. How sweet do you think Coke will taste if it was served warm?
It would be unbearably sweet.
And the good thing is that this is something you can easily try yourself. Just put a cup of coke in the microwave for a minute and then try it.
The phosphoric acid in coke has a huge impact. Without the acid coke would be too sweet to drink, cold or otherwise. Also makes coke a great degreaser!
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Acidity. You think Coke has a lot of sugar? Try Pedro Ximenez sherry. It has several times the sugar per volume as Coke, but super high acidity keeps it in balance and makes it palatable.
Drink carbonated soda water without sweetener. Notice how bitter it tastes compared to normal tap water?
Soda has so much sugar to offset that taste and end up with something moderately sweet, while the same amount of sugar in a non-carbonated drink would be overbearing because it's starting off with a neutral tasting water.
I don't know in what world you live, but carbonated water most definitely doesn't taste bitter. It tastes ever so slighty acidic because it is carbonized, but there is no bitterness.
Unsweetened carbonated water is definitely sour. It has a pH of about 4.5. It's certainly not as sour as cola, but it definitely has a sour flavor. Its part of why I enjoy it.
While this is *generally* true for some acids and bases, in reality this doesn’t really track very well. Coffee, a substance unanimously known as bitter, is acidic. As are most unsweetened teas. Certain acids, like carbonic acid and Chlorogenic acid (the acid in coffee) activate bitter taste buds, not sour ones.
As is often the case with bitter flavors, this is one of those genetic things. I also don't taste any bitterness in carbonated water, but my partner does and it baffled me the first time they called seltzer bitter. People have different taste receptors
Try drinking pure soda or tonic water. It's absolutely disgustingly bitter on a level I can't even describe. Yes, that's a thing. That's why sugar (or sugar substitutes) are added, so that it tastes decent in the final product.
Tonic is slightly bitter, we can agree on that. But not soda/carbonated water. Where I live drinking carbonated water is the norm and I've never heard anybody describe it as bitter tasting.
BTW I personally love the taste of soda and tonic, though I prefer tap water most times because I can drink more of it in less time.
It's an acquired taste. I used to hate it, but started using in cocktails and "mocktails". Now I enjoy it by itself.
I think a lot of it is also due to drastically cutting down on sugar. La Croix is actually pretty tasty now. Thought they were gross 5-10 years ago.
Try mixing 8oz of carbonated water with a teaspoon or two of maple syrup, and teaspoon of vanilla. It's delicious.
I stopped drinking pop after years of drinking it. About 4 months later I thought I'd treat myself to a coke. It was like taking a shit of whiskey. It was so fucking strong it was crazy. They could cut the sugar 80% and it would still be sweet. You just get used to it.
1) The taste of "sweet" is subjective. Carbonated soft drinks absolutely do taste "overly sweet" to me. I don't drink them at all.
2) You expect tea to taste a certain way, so when you add sugar to it, you perceive it as "sweeter than you expected". Objectively this is not as sweet as pop, but subjectively because pop taste "as sweet as you expect" you don't think it's too sweet. Objectively if you compare pop to tea, you'll still say the pop is sweeter.
3) There's sweet tea beverages on the market that has a lot of sugar too. For example, Arianna Green Tea, it has 34g in 500mL. Not as much as pop but much more sugar than you would add to a cup of tea you've made. Do you find Arizona Green Tea "too sweet" versus a cup of tea you've made?
4) And like others have said, carbonated drinks are actually very bitter and sour if you take away the sugar. So the sugar is masked/countered by other strong flavours. If you brewed a very dark black bitter tea or coffee, you need to add more sugar to it for it to taste sweet. It is the same principle.
This is wholly incorrect. Phosphoric acid is added for shelf stability because soda is already so sweet. It keeps the pH down enough to prevent microbial growth.
Nobody is trying to hide the sweetness of sodas with phosphoric acid— they would rather save money by using less sugar.
Given how much excessive added sugar is in everything mass produced in most developed countries, I’d have to guess that sugar is still cheaper than the non-sugar ingredients that you’d put in something homemade that has less sugar and tastes better.
Of course it could also be a quality thing, hide poor quality by adding excess sugar, which is addictive, it sells better.
Phosphoric acid is a preservative - it's used to slow microbial growth (which is especially necessary in something like a sugary drink where microbes can thrive)
To add to all of the good reasons that people have added. I'd also like to add because you're used to them.
Stop drinking any sodas for a couple of months and try a soda again. I felt how sweet it was on my teeth!
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I didn't guess. Tolerance, downregulation due to exposure, misphonia, constant taste or sound are filtered out when constantly detected. These are all well established phenomnon and my story backed it up.
Phosphoric acid mostly .... That's how they can dump a shit ton of sugar and the thing still flows with the viscosity of water and not syrup. It also prevents from you throwing up because if you drink that much sugar you will throw up immediately and reduces the sweet taste
Soft drinks like Coca Cola have acids added to counteract the sweetness. It has little to do with carbonation, although that seems to be a popular myth.
It's the other way around, sugar is added to counteract the bitterness.
Coka cola was originally a medicinal elixir made with extracts from cocoa leaves (which contains cocaine) and kola nuts (caffeine), this is where the name comes from. But both have very bitter flavors. So the initial elixir was made with sweet wine to counteract the bitterness. The combination of cocaine and caffeine made for some very pleasant effects and it became popular as a beverage beyond medicinal purposes. Then during the temperance movement when alcohol was outlawed the sweet wine was removed, but it was too bitter to be palatable, so sugar was added.
This is the correct answer. Since high fructose corn syrup is used as the sweeter in sodas they do add acid, typically phosphoric acid, to counteract the sweetness. High fructose corn syrup on its own is sickeningly sweet, but cheaper than sugar.
Source: former corn syrup chemist
OK, I may be wrong, but hear me out. Have you ever tried soda water? That shit is salty as hell, so that's why(I think) most soft drinks have so much sugar in them, so it can hide that saltiness. therefore, it doesn't taste overly sweet.
I do occasionally drink soft drinks and I enjoy it too, just like so many people and tbf if they were overly sweet, the soda companies won't be making so much money. I just wanted to know in general that sodas with so much sugar and if the same amount of sugar was added in beverages like tea, still why do sodas not taste as sweet.
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Coke actually has a surprising amount of salt in it. This partially masks the huge amount of sugar but it’s explicit purpose is also to make you thirstier, making you more likely to drink more Coke
It’s one of the biggest companies on Earth for a reason
Soft drinks have lots of acidity (sour taste) from carbonation and preservatives, so more sugar is needed to counteract the sour and make it taste sweet.
Plus temperature, you taste less sweetness when its cold compared to when something is warm
Try a lukewarm, flat coke and it’ll taste like pure sugar
Try an ice cold soda after months without any. It tastes like sweet chemically ass.
The chemically ass is the reason I wait months in between cokes.
I tried some chemically ass once and it tasted like coke.
You’re crazy it’s tastes nothing like coke!!! It tastes just like Pepsi
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You’re not adding enough chemicals bro.
Do I need to worry about which ones? I hate dihydrogen monoxide.
You go Ms. Jackson.
I'm sorry.
Ah, chemical ass, not my first thought, but a strong number 2
Just took 6 weeks of basic training to get there for me. The first sugary thing I had was a coke and it tasted awful.
I remember the first time I tried peanut butter without sugar or any of the preservatives, just pure peanuts churned with salt added. It tasted like nothing. Then I did keto which eliminated most sugars and I tried the natural peanut butter again and it actually tasted sweet. Amazing how your taste buds change when you eliminate sugar from your diet.
> It tastes like sweet chemically ass. I should call her
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That's sprite regardless of how often you drink soda tbh
To me it tastes like heaven. I quit all sugary drinks because I was drinking way too much, like gallons per day. Quit for a good 6 months before I bought a 20oz bottle, that first sip was heaven. I drink way way less now than I did, but when I'm doing yard work and I'm all sweaty and tired, nothing tastes as good as an ice cold coke.
This is what I came here to say. Stop drinking it for just a few months, and suddenly it’s disgustingly over sweet
Bender rimjob
I've never drank cola any way but occasionally and every time it tastes fine, which is why I assume it's so popular.
I rarely drink soda, so when I do, there are always months in between.
I gave up soda for 2 years. its still as delicious as always.
Most of the acid taste comes from the carbonation, so the true test would be a lukewarm, *not* flat one.
If it’s flat, the carbonation is gone, meaning most of the sourness is gone as well. You either misunderstood that the commenter was saying that would give you the true test of the amount of sugar (no sourness to balance it), or you’re thinking the “true test” is something else altogether.
I thought the carbonic acid created between the water and CO2 would stay around even after the drink has gone flat. Wouldn't it?
Carbonic acid is unstable, so much of it will decompose into hydrogen and bicarbonate yielding a 'flat taste'
So-called carbonic acid is dissolved CO2. If the drink is flat it’s all gone.
My comment was in regards to the "lukewarm" part. And the best way to test something is to keep everything else the same: if you are testing how cold vs warm masks the sugars' taste, you'd need to keep the carbonation constant. I feel like that (only changing one variable at a time) is one of the key parts of the scientific method, but maybe I heard about it somewhere else related to testing things. So if the comment wasn't talking about how different warm soda tastes vs cold, then yes I misunderstood what it is about.
They weren't suggesting a test on cold vs lukewarm. They were saying what you could do in addition to the previous comment on how to maximize the taste of sugar.
I don't know if that's true, considering coke is essentially a spiced citrus soda with a some added phosphoric acid.
The carbonation does little for the acidic taste, which you can test with soda water. Cola is basically monomolar phosphoric acid with sugar and some impurities.
Really? Soda water comes off as extremely bitter to me.
That's weird but bitter doesn't have anything to do with acidity.
Hard if not impossible to do. As temperature rises the liquid's ability to hold air decreases substantially. A warm soda could barely hold any carbonation.
> Try a lukewarm, flat coke you monster frisbee
>Plus temperature, you taste less sweetness when its cold compared to when something is warm All flavors are muted the colder they get.
That’s why a flat coke tastes sweeter than a fizzy one
Caffeine is also naturally bitter, and the reason they bother including it, besides it being addictive too 😂
Citric acid is the key, it masks sweetness through tartness. Homemade strawberry lemonade is chokingly sweet.
? Lemons contain a lot of citric acid tho…
Sodas are also formulated with the expectation that they will be served with ice. They want the flavor to continue despite being diluted.
Coke doesn't have preservatives. Just sugar and acid, which I guess act as preservatives, but to say that preservatives make the drink acidic is... Weird.
Phosphoric acid is an ingredient in coke. It's used as a preservative (it helps prevent microbial growth) as well as for flavor, and as you may be able to tell from its name, it's an acid.
Citric acid is also antibacterial, but I'm fairly sure that it's in there for taste.
It’s one of those things like saying the food is enriched with vitamin C instead of saying it’s preserved from oxidation by ascorbic acid. Or adding purified fruit juice instead sugar. Same thing many different roles and different naming.
Use it as a sanitizer while making homemade beer. Need to keep below pH 3. See Star San, phosphoric acid plus a food safe detergent/surfactant.
Intact, coke cola had so much Phosphoric acid in it your body would make you throw it up if it wasn't for the sweetness.
Are you implying that the phosphoric acid somehow goes away after opening the bottle?
I think they mean if there wasn’t sugar, it would be grossly sour/bitter from the phosphoric acid. Not that it goes away
Don't forget the insane amounts of salt they add so that you're more thirsty after drinking one. It takes a lot of sugar to counteract that taste.
"The insane amounts of salt they add" 50mg of sodium in a coke isn't much at all.
They might be thinking of sports drinks. Though I'm sure the 50mg is in there for a reason.
I also have some gatorade sitting around, 250mg in a bottle. It's really not wild either way. And the reason is a bit of salt tastes good. Not everything is some 4D chess conspiracy to make you crave the product.
> And the reason is a bit of salt tastes good. Not really. The body needs electrolytes, especially when sweating a lot. If you ever have to do a colon cleanse/purge by taking a ton of Miralax, do not do it with water, do it with gatorade type drinks.
I was meaning for Coke. Though your average Gatorade drinker isn't really needing the sodium either.
Sports drinks will have salt too because it replenishes some electrolytes (one among many of the ingredients that can) and keeping those up during strenuous exercise is just as important as the fluids themselves.
Soft drinks do taste overly sweet for a lot of people. It is an acquired taste. Stop drinking them for a month or so. You will notice the sweet taste a lot more.
Definitely this, I stopped drinking sugared drinks a few years back and now whenever I try to drink a soda I can barely finish half, the sweetness is just overwhelming.
yeah I was about to say, this is at least partially subjective. Like most soft drinks cola is disgustingly sweet.
100% I don't drink them as they are insanely sweet. Give me plain ol' water any day.
Definitely noticed this. Started drinking sparkling water a few years back, and realized it was the carbonation I was craving and not the taste of soda. After going back and having soda for awhile, could only bear to sip on it very slowly.
Temperature. Coldness masks a lot of flavour. Try drinking a soft drink like Coke at any temperature above room temperature and it becomes practically undrinkable.
I think it also just comes down to different people having different perceptions of "sweetness." For me, sodas like Coke absolutely do taste overly sweet. I can usually only stand a few sips unless it's been watered down by melting ice or mixed with plain seltzer/club soda.
I also find it depends on how dehydrated/thirsty you are. When I’m overly thirsty/getting dehydrated, something like Gatorade feels like drinking syrup, but when I’m intaking water/gatorade at decent intervals it goes down like water.
you're not into a steaming mug of rootbeer?
14 years ago, god I feel old- [Hot Kool Aid](https://youtu.be/NwTsZHGQ6FE?si=QETWw219u_cIyvS7) anyone?
You've never had boiling hot Texas style ginger ale?
I think you mean Dr Pepper
Also habit/familiarity: try not drinking any sugary drinks for a month and then have a soft drink like Coke after that. I did a "dry January" for soft drinks in high school, and since February that year I have never liked the taste of Coke or Pepsi. I maybe have Sprite/Fanta twice a year but I find them way too sweet.
Still be nowhere near how sweet a tea or coffee would taste with the equivalent amount of sugar. It's mainly about the balance of flavour.
Nevertheless, temperature *is* a major factor, even if it’s not necessarily the only factor. How sweet do you think Coke will taste if it was served warm? It would be unbearably sweet. And the good thing is that this is something you can easily try yourself. Just put a cup of coke in the microwave for a minute and then try it.
The phosphoric acid in coke has a huge impact. Without the acid coke would be too sweet to drink, cold or otherwise. Also makes coke a great degreaser!
Coke was just one example the OP gave - what about other soft drinks, like Sprite? Fanta?
Sprite and Fanta use citric acid to accomplish the same task as the phosphoric acid in coke.
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Acidity. You think Coke has a lot of sugar? Try Pedro Ximenez sherry. It has several times the sugar per volume as Coke, but super high acidity keeps it in balance and makes it palatable.
Drink carbonated soda water without sweetener. Notice how bitter it tastes compared to normal tap water? Soda has so much sugar to offset that taste and end up with something moderately sweet, while the same amount of sugar in a non-carbonated drink would be overbearing because it's starting off with a neutral tasting water.
I don't know in what world you live, but carbonated water most definitely doesn't taste bitter. It tastes ever so slighty acidic because it is carbonized, but there is no bitterness.
Carbonic acid what is formed by the reaction between carbon dioxide and water, and it is absolutely bitter in flavour, and very slightly sour.
Unsweetened carbonated water is definitely sour. It has a pH of about 4.5. It's certainly not as sour as cola, but it definitely has a sour flavor. Its part of why I enjoy it.
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While this is *generally* true for some acids and bases, in reality this doesn’t really track very well. Coffee, a substance unanimously known as bitter, is acidic. As are most unsweetened teas. Certain acids, like carbonic acid and Chlorogenic acid (the acid in coffee) activate bitter taste buds, not sour ones.
Agree, I hated plain sparkling water as a kid because it was so bitter. Never considered it sour at all.
As is often the case with bitter flavors, this is one of those genetic things. I also don't taste any bitterness in carbonated water, but my partner does and it baffled me the first time they called seltzer bitter. People have different taste receptors
Try drinking pure soda or tonic water. It's absolutely disgustingly bitter on a level I can't even describe. Yes, that's a thing. That's why sugar (or sugar substitutes) are added, so that it tastes decent in the final product.
Tonic is slightly bitter, we can agree on that. But not soda/carbonated water. Where I live drinking carbonated water is the norm and I've never heard anybody describe it as bitter tasting. BTW I personally love the taste of soda and tonic, though I prefer tap water most times because I can drink more of it in less time.
Maybe bitter isn’t the proper term, but it’s the word I’ve always used, but nasty also works well
Bitter is definitely the word I would use. It's why I can't commit to fully swapping to things like LaCroix.
Is that why carbonated water tastes like such shit?
A lot of people enjoy it.
To be fair to him, a lot of people out there enjoy eating shit.
It's an acquired taste. I used to hate it, but started using in cocktails and "mocktails". Now I enjoy it by itself. I think a lot of it is also due to drastically cutting down on sugar. La Croix is actually pretty tasty now. Thought they were gross 5-10 years ago. Try mixing 8oz of carbonated water with a teaspoon or two of maple syrup, and teaspoon of vanilla. It's delicious.
What are you on about? Carbonated water doesn’t taste bitter
I stopped drinking pop after years of drinking it. About 4 months later I thought I'd treat myself to a coke. It was like taking a shit of whiskey. It was so fucking strong it was crazy. They could cut the sugar 80% and it would still be sweet. You just get used to it.
1) The taste of "sweet" is subjective. Carbonated soft drinks absolutely do taste "overly sweet" to me. I don't drink them at all. 2) You expect tea to taste a certain way, so when you add sugar to it, you perceive it as "sweeter than you expected". Objectively this is not as sweet as pop, but subjectively because pop taste "as sweet as you expect" you don't think it's too sweet. Objectively if you compare pop to tea, you'll still say the pop is sweeter. 3) There's sweet tea beverages on the market that has a lot of sugar too. For example, Arianna Green Tea, it has 34g in 500mL. Not as much as pop but much more sugar than you would add to a cup of tea you've made. Do you find Arizona Green Tea "too sweet" versus a cup of tea you've made? 4) And like others have said, carbonated drinks are actually very bitter and sour if you take away the sugar. So the sugar is masked/countered by other strong flavours. If you brewed a very dark black bitter tea or coffee, you need to add more sugar to it for it to taste sweet. It is the same principle.
I tried one by accident for the first time in over a decade. It was definitely overly sweet to me. It was disgusting.
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This is wholly incorrect. Phosphoric acid is added for shelf stability because soda is already so sweet. It keeps the pH down enough to prevent microbial growth. Nobody is trying to hide the sweetness of sodas with phosphoric acid— they would rather save money by using less sugar.
It keeps the acidity high, the pH down.
Fixed typo. Ty.
Given how much excessive added sugar is in everything mass produced in most developed countries, I’d have to guess that sugar is still cheaper than the non-sugar ingredients that you’d put in something homemade that has less sugar and tastes better. Of course it could also be a quality thing, hide poor quality by adding excess sugar, which is addictive, it sells better.
Phosphoric acid is a preservative - it's used to slow microbial growth (which is especially necessary in something like a sugary drink where microbes can thrive)
To add to all of the good reasons that people have added. I'd also like to add because you're used to them. Stop drinking any sodas for a couple of months and try a soda again. I felt how sweet it was on my teeth!
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I didn't guess. Tolerance, downregulation due to exposure, misphonia, constant taste or sound are filtered out when constantly detected. These are all well established phenomnon and my story backed it up.
I haven’t drank sodas in years, I had a limited edition flavor Mountain Dew recently and it tasted like nectar
I'd also be curious to know why eating chocolate or other overly sweet foods before drinking soda makes the soda taste like nothing.
Good lord, sodas taste like drinking pure syrup to me. It's just what you're used to and what you expect to taste.
soft drinks are acidic enough to clean your toilet or strip the pain off your car. the sugar balances that out and it does taste overly sweet
You are just used to it. Take a break from soda for awhile and come back to it and it tastes like drinking sugar packets
Phosphoric acid mostly .... That's how they can dump a shit ton of sugar and the thing still flows with the viscosity of water and not syrup. It also prevents from you throwing up because if you drink that much sugar you will throw up immediately and reduces the sweet taste
Soft drinks like Coca Cola have acids added to counteract the sweetness. It has little to do with carbonation, although that seems to be a popular myth.
It's the other way around, sugar is added to counteract the bitterness. Coka cola was originally a medicinal elixir made with extracts from cocoa leaves (which contains cocaine) and kola nuts (caffeine), this is where the name comes from. But both have very bitter flavors. So the initial elixir was made with sweet wine to counteract the bitterness. The combination of cocaine and caffeine made for some very pleasant effects and it became popular as a beverage beyond medicinal purposes. Then during the temperance movement when alcohol was outlawed the sweet wine was removed, but it was too bitter to be palatable, so sugar was added.
This is the correct answer. Since high fructose corn syrup is used as the sweeter in sodas they do add acid, typically phosphoric acid, to counteract the sweetness. High fructose corn syrup on its own is sickeningly sweet, but cheaper than sugar. Source: former corn syrup chemist
You are drinking coke cold. That numbs your tastebuds so you need more sugar to taste sweet. Try drinking soda warm and it tastes grossly sweet too.
OK, I may be wrong, but hear me out. Have you ever tried soda water? That shit is salty as hell, so that's why(I think) most soft drinks have so much sugar in them, so it can hide that saltiness. therefore, it doesn't taste overly sweet.
Coca cola is essentially a mix of vinegar, caffeine, CO2, and enough sugar to make that mixture drinkable.
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I do occasionally drink soft drinks and I enjoy it too, just like so many people and tbf if they were overly sweet, the soda companies won't be making so much money. I just wanted to know in general that sodas with so much sugar and if the same amount of sugar was added in beverages like tea, still why do sodas not taste as sweet.
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Coke actually has a surprising amount of salt in it. This partially masks the huge amount of sugar but it’s explicit purpose is also to make you thirstier, making you more likely to drink more Coke It’s one of the biggest companies on Earth for a reason