phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (07/30/85)
In article <1733@reed.UUCP> purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva) writes: >In article <52@ecn-aa.UUCP> westerm@aa.UUCP (Westerman) writes: > >>My suggestion to all you die-hard Coke drinkers out there: Take the >>taste test (you're going to have to find some old Coke first). You >>may be suprised by the results. > > I did, back before the days of new Coke. I picked Coke. I wasn't >surprised. Last Saturday we had a Coke tasting. There were 10 of us, evenly divided among men and women. All were in the age group 25-35. 90% were round-eyes. At least three of us claimed to be old Coke addicts. (how can you be a macho programmer if you don't drink Coke?) Two said they did not particularly like soft drinks. The drinks tested were old Coke, new Coke, Pepsi, Craigmont Cola (local store brand), Cherry Coke, and Slice(slime). Most of the drinks were gotten from local stores, except the old Coke, which was obtained on a trip to Washington State a month ago. At the time I was on vacation, both Oregon and Washington were selling what appeared to be old and new Coke side by side. I assumed they had not completed the introduction of the new Coke yet. Testing was done with a blind-folded subject being offered the drink in a plastic 3 oz cup. 6 drinks were offered in a random sequence with no promise that the drinks were unique. That is, the subject might get the same drink twice during the tasting. In that case, one of the drinks would not be tasted because of the duplication. Subjects were asked to identify which drink they had been given. Preference was not asked although subjects were allowed to make comments. The results were surprising to me. The average number of correct identifications was around two. No one got more than three right. One person identified nothing correctly. I could not tell the difference between old Coke, new Coke, and Pepsi under the conditions of the test. (nor could anyone else) I sincerely believe I can tell the difference under normal drinking conditions (as do the other two old Coke addicts) so I wonder what happened? Is it really all psychological? Was the temperature wrong? Is 3 oz too small a sample? Could I have picked up a package of mis-labeled new Coke in Washington? I am trying some new Coke as I write this and I really think I can taste a fructose quality in it which is not present in my "old Coke" stash. By the way, the Craigmont was identified by most people. One person made a face and claimed we must be giving him a sample of the bowl in which we poured the excess samples. Most people disliked it. I see our local drugstore has Classic Coke now so I plan to run another tasting. Wonder if I will be embarrassed again. By the way, after the Coke tasting we had a beer tasting in which people did about as well. There's a lesson in here somewhere... -- There are two kinds of people, those who lump people in groups and those who don't. Phil Ngai (408) 749-5720 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.ARPA
bsisrs@rruxe.UUCP (R. Schiraldi) (08/02/85)
I had one of those taste test run by Pepsi a few years back (you know,
the Pepsi Challange) where they had a glass of Coke and a glass of Pepsi
and aske you ti taste them. Since it was a blind taste test, I had _NO_
idea which was which. (I always thought they had both glasses filled
with Pepsi ;-) ). The funny thing was I chose Coke and I always disliked
Coke. I guess I dislike Pepsi even more.
As to the taste of New and Classic Coke, give me a Dr.Pepper any day !!
RichS.