Coke and Pepsi do not taste the same, and Sprite does not taste like either of them.

It's not simply a matter of different amounts of sugar, they use different "natural flavors" and have different levels of carbonation.

The difference in flavors is roughly similar to the difference between an IPA, a double IPA, and a cider.

My guess is that some common ingredients have such strong flavor that the other ingredients are covered. We could reliably distinguish between coke and Diet Coke though.

My mom refused to believe that I could taste the difference between caffeine-free Diet Coke and the normal Diet Coke. She was trying to get me to decaffeinate myself.

So, she made me take a blind taste test. I proved I was right and that I really could taste the difference, and she stopped trying to force me to decaffeinate myself.

She was quite surprised and unhappy that I was right and that I really could taste the difference. But to her credit, she upheld her end of the bargain.

It's pretty cool that you can literally taste caffeine. Is it more of a flavor or a smell?

It was a difference in flavor. At the time, I attributed it to the decaffeination process that was used, thus causing the drink to taste different. It was a mild difference, but detectable. And I didn't like the different taste.

Thinking back on it, it could just have been that the caffeinated drinks came from a newer batch and the decaffeinated drinks came from an older batch. Or maybe they were canned in different facilities, which might be using different water.

I don't think my mom controlled for all the potentially confounding variables.

But all of these experts on the internet say you can't even tell the difference between coffee and tea if you're blindfolded let alone different types of soda so clearly you're wrong! /s

Seriously, though, one unreplicated headline-grabbing result can generate so very much "science says..." type rhetoric.

The Sprite vs Coke thing is surprising; Coke vs Diet Coke is not. I regularly find that I'm given Diet Coke even though I asked for regular. Aspartame and most other artificial sweeteners have a very distinctive flavor and I can generally detect it even in items I don't expect to find it in.

Likewise 'full fat' Coke tastes syrupy and sticky compared to artificially sweetened Coke. It's not so much a flavour thing as a texture thing.

I'm skeptical. Coca Cola and Pepsi have fairly distinct flavor profiles. There are some that I could see being more problematic. Like RC vs Pepsi, which have a similar profile. But Sprite? Nah, that's got a strong citrus component that definitely doesn't exist in a cola.

> But Sprite? Nah, that's got a strong citrus component that definitely doesn't exist in a cola.

It may surprise you to find out, then, that Coca-Cola is actually a lemon-lime soda. In fact, all Colas are predominantly citrus flavored.

"The primary modern flavoring ingredients in a cola drink are citrus oils (from orange, lime, and lemon peels), cinnamon, vanilla, and an acidic flavorant." [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cola

Oh, they are probably indeed different. But the question wasn’t whether they were different; it was whether we could tell the difference in a blind folded test.

62 students, 50% error rate.