The Missing Link: Soda Machines

You are no doubt familiar with the humble soda fountain:

And you may be familiar with the newfangled touch screen soda fountains:

If you haven't seen these things, they're wonderful. Basically, Coke went into the future and brought this back. You can choose from your standard products (all of them: Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Sprite, Sprite Zero, Pibb, Diet Pibb, Vault, Barq's, Diet Barq's, "Lemon"ade, Powerade, like 34 different Fantas, and crappy old water), but then it will let you add flavor to them! For Coke, you can add cherry, vanilla, lime, cherry vanilla (not pictured, but I've seen it!), orange, or rapsberry. Orange coke is godawful. Stay away at all costs. Rapsberry coke is quite amazing.

I recently found the Missing Link in soda fountains, though:

Thousands of years from now, after the soda fountains have become sentient and eradicated mankind with type 2 diabetes, soda fountain archaeologists may one day find this many-choiced, yet sparsely-nozzled machine. I imagine it won't slow the debate between the sentient soda fountain creationists and the sentient soda fountain evolutionists, but it will be a breakthrough for sentient soda fountain scientists!

Zero calorie Coca Cola

Get ready for a mindfuck!

Coca-Cola Zero is a zero-calorie version of Coca-Cola. Diet Coke isn't!

Diet Coke was introduced in 1982. It raped Tab in sales and was the first new brand to use the name Coke since 1886. Coke was terrified of making a diet drink with the name of their successful product on it. Hence, the zero-calorie Tab was introduced in 1963. Meanwhile, Diet Pepsi was introduced in 1964. Pepsi just didn't give a fuck.

Anyway, instead of sugar, it contained saccharine and aspartame. The amounts of each varied during the first few years. In 2005, Diet Coke with Splenda (sucralose) was introduced. And it's okay I guess. Meh. Diet Pepsi is better at being a diet drink anyway.

...Not that 'diet' should be used to describe a soda anyway....

So, where's the mindfuck?

Diet Coke isn't a sugar-free version of the Coca-Cola formula. Instead, it's its own formula.

Here it comes...

NEW COKE WAS BASED ON DIET COKE.

WHAT!

That's right. New Coke was a high fructose corn syrup version of the Diet Coke formula. (HFCS is another horrible thing I'll get into another day.) Since real Coke is so much better than Diet Coke, it's no wonder it failed. Coca-Cola Classic was (re)introduced shortly after New Coke was introduced, only now it had HFCS in it.

In 2004, Coca-Cola released Coca-Cola Zero, which is in fact a sugar-free version of regular Coca-Cola. I thought they just switched up the ratio of aspartame to saccarhine in Diet Coke and called it "Coca-Cola Zero" so they could market a zero-calorie drink to men. But I guess I'm wrong. It's not often that happens.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_Coke

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

Caffeine

I'm tired of having the caffeine argument about tea. Black tea has more caffeine than soda, goddamnit! White tea and green tea has less.

I try to avoid drinking lots of soda in the morning, but sometimes that's just the way things go. On the mornings I drink tea I end up wired out of my head. It doesn't help that I drink lots more tea than coke on the days I switch.

Part of the reason is that when it starts to get cold, I chug that motherfucker. Then I'll reach for it again later to discover my cup being empty, so I have to go get more.

And I hate iced tea so don't even suggest it.

So anyway my coworker doesn't think I should be as wired as I am just because of tea. "Oh come on, you only had tea." Shut up.

Let's do the math!

coffee/tea cup size = 525 mm^3 = 16 oz (close enough)

Amount of caffeine/8 oz of tea = 50mg
(source: http://www.bigelowtea.com/help/faqdetail.cfm?faq=8)

Per mug of tea, there is 50-100 mg of caffeine.

I had 4 cups of tea this morning => 200-400mg of caffeine

Now, had I stuck to Coke or Pepsi:

There are 23mg of caffeine per 8oz Coke and 25mg per 8oz Pepsi. (Mountainn Dew, btw, has 36mg per 8oz.)

Per can, this works out to 34.5mg for Coke; 37.5mg for Pepsi.

3 Cokes/Pepsis yesterday morning = 103.5/112.5mg

(sources: www.pepsiproductfacts.com http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/mail/goodanswer/soft_drink_nutrition.pdf)

Just for contrast, let's investigate coffee...

Instant coffee: 62mg of caffeine per 8oz

Plain, brewed: 95mg of caffeine per 8oz

Starbucks: 165mg of caffeine per 8oz

(source: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/caffeine/AN01211)

Damn! I could consume as much caffeine with one Starbucks coffee than I could with 4 teas!

Too bad it tastes like ass.