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Comment by bradknowles | Hacker News Reader

Many years ago, I had an argument kind of like this with my mom about the difference between decaf Diet Coke and plain Diet Coke. Since she was the Mathemetician in the family, I let her design the double-blind taste test.

When I could conclusively tell the difference every time, she was flabbergasted. But she did finally believe me that there actually was a taste difference between them, at least there was for me. So, she stopped trying to get me to drink decaf.

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I performed a reasonably rigorous experiment for my AP statistics class in high school - I tested a ton of different sodas and their diet equivalents across my classmates, and of the 8 sodas tested almost all had a statistically significant bias in favor of the non-diet version. For coca cola, I also tested the non-caffeinated versions - the non caffeinated regular Coke was the top performer.

The only exception to this was diet SunKist - it handily beat regular SunKist, by a large margin.

This shouldn't be too surprising, as caffeine itself has a flavor. It is somewhat bitter, which is one reason why it's particularly common in root beer.

Did you mean that it's not common in root beer? Wiki says that root beer has little to no caffeine.

Root beer is so sweet that I would think it could mask the bitterness. I wonder if the plants that originally were brewed into it just didn't have any caffeine.

Do the ingredients to coke naturally have caffeine, or was that a substitute for the original alkaloid? I.e., is decaf coke because the removed the caffeine, or is caffeinated coke that way because it was added?

Root beer doesn't naturally have caffeine, but sometimes it's added for flavor.

Coca-Cola lists caffeine as an ingredient in the UK.

I don't know why caffeine was originally added - maybe for flavour, maybe for the stimulant effects, possibly because of having to not have cocaine in it anymore...

The "original" Coca-Cola had caffeine as well - it's in the cola nut, which is where the "cola" part of the name comes from.

(pedantic mode on)

That reminds me of my mom, always calling it decaf. There is a difference between decaffinated and caffeine free or non-caffeinated. Coke can be non-caffeinated, meaning that it can be made without adding caffeine. Decaffinated implies that there was caffeine present at some time, but was taken out (like coffee).

That's only half the test. The other half is to have them decide which is which.

The human taste is incredibly good at discerning two different flavors. Not so good at identifying them.

Decaf diet coke is the nost useless thing anyway. You get neither coffein, it is just water with some taste.

That people exist who drink decaf diet sodas boggles the mind.

Why not drink carbonated water at that point? Or just water, you know.

Or drink real soda in moderation.

I'm one of those who prefer decaf diet sodas. I have sleep issues so I don't like taking any amount of caffeine after a certain time, and once you get used to diet sodas, regular ones don't taste as good (on top of the ridiculous amounts of sugar that each one has).

Same. Also, real soda is poison.

A general drink typically has— a) a certain taste b) a certain mouthfeel (due to the CO2 in case of sodas) c) caffeine and / or other substances

People might want some or all of the above.

For eg. I sometimes drink decaf Starbucks blended drinks at night because I don't want to mess with my sleep cycle but I like their taste.

Decaf still has caffeine. Maybe not enough to affect you personally, but pay closer attention and maybe it does.

It is low enough to not have bothered me personally. And I can attest to that because the level of caffeine in a regular coffee would definitely be noticeable (to me).

Yeah, switching to decaf coffee still set off my addiction, just not as strongly as full strength. It still has something like 10% as much as normal coffee. I can still detect the slight high.

I agree, one of the reasons I drink coke is for the sugar and caffeine hit that it provides. Take that away and I may as well be drinking fizzy water. Coke was an energy drink for me before red bull ever existed. For the record however I don't drink energy drinks, I used to mix my vodka with redbull when I was clubbing but the stomach cramps it gave me got old quick.

Of course it's carbonated water, with some artificial sweetener and usually a little acid bite. That's what people like and that's why they drink it.

Caffeine triggers seizures for me, so un-caffeinated is a must. But yeah, mostly what I drink is just fizzy water from a sodastream.

I don't understand your point in the slightest.

I don't (usually) drink cola for the caffeine, as far as I'm concerned that's just there as a legal way of getting customers chemically addicted to their product. I didn't think many people (consciously) bought it specifically for the caffeine at all.

As for diet - I also don't drink it because I want to ingest sugar. I have plenty of food energy available to me as a first world person living in 2017 and if anything, too much of it. The sugar is there purely to make the drink taste good. I didn't think anyone else really drank it for the purposes of ingesting sugar either. In some drinks (No for Dr. Pepper, but yes for Pepsi), I find the artificial sweetener tastes perfectly acceptable.

I drink cola because it tastes good and satisfies thirst. Not because I want caffeine or sugar. Those two things are bad for me.

Since I don't want the caffeine, and I'm satisfied with the taste of artificial sweetener, I drink caffeine-free diet cola. It still satisfies the goal of quenching thirst and tasting good.

What's your argument?

It can be a really handy diet tool, depending on your situation. I lost 35% of my bodyweight and part of my reward system was a diet soda. Mostly caffeinated, but when I've had too much caffeine, like maybe I took a Jetalert or something, it's nice to have the no caffeine decaf option. Zero calories + sweet is very nice on the system when you're aiming to get the most out of the calories you are eating.

You could say the same thing about decaf coffee. If the caffeine delivery is the only reason to drink it, that is.

But then if that's the case, you can also ask why everyone doesn't just drink water and take a caffeine pill.

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