Uncola-ish.

This morning I skipped the familiar Coke Zero and Diet Pepsi to buy a Zevia sugar free cola.  I'd seen them before and finally decided to try one.  A can costs 99 cents plus tax and deposit at Sobeys.   

Even before you drink it you'll notice it's clear.  It doesn't contain colouring like a conventional cola.  When I drank it to me it didn't taste that much like a cola either.  Frankly it tasted closer to slightly flat Sprite.

Zevia uses stevia leaf, which has become increasingly common as a sweetener in North America over the last decade.  Perhaps this has something to do with the taste.  A while ago my dad bought a can of Coke Life, which is sweetened with a mixture of stevia and sugar.  He thought it tasted more like ginger ale than Coke.  On the other hand it may simply be the taste profile Zevia decided to go for.

I probably won't be buying any again anytime soon.

Elusive.

I don't know about where you live, but here in Saskatoon a single serving bottle or can of Diet 7 Up seems to be hard to find.  Few places carry them, and the places that do aren't the ones you can buy them cheap.  Is it just because no one buys those sizes, so they don't get stocked, or is there some other reason? 

More Diet Pop Musings.

As a followup to my post on Coke Zero here's a post from the Omni Brain blog on Scienceblogs on why diet soda may taste like crap. I'm not entirely convinced, although I suppose the comments I made could in part reflect a difference in "mouth feel" between Coke Zero and regular Coke. It's also interesting to read the comments about different sugar products being used in Coke in different locations. I knew about the Mexican variation, but it seems Canadian Coke may be different as well from American Coke.