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Coca-Cola's Coffee Soda

Boost writes "According to a new press release Coca-Cola is about to launch a new beverage called Coca-Cola Blak that adds real coffee to the blend. Carbonated coffee?" I imagine this will be quite different than the cans of hot coffee that makes walking around in Tokyo so delicious. But hey, cans of coffee! I'm in for one at least.

45 of 563 comments (clear)

  1. Jolt Cola? by Jotii · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, this will be their counter to Jolt Cola?

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  2. Mix fav beverages? by BWJones · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Appropriate post for someone named Boost I suppose.

    Seriously though, I don't know that I want to mix two of my favorite beverages. I like my Coca-Cola (diet original).....and I looooove my coffee, Kona in particular. Sure, I'll give it a go, but I am not so sure I want to mix the two.....

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    1. Re:Mix fav beverages? by WhiteFlye · · Score: 5, Funny

      Seriously though, I don't know that I want to mix two of my favorite beverages.

      I agree. While I whole-heartedly endorse any attempt to further increase the options for the consumption of copious amounts of caffeine, this creation strikes me as appetizing as Budweiser's BE. For those unacquainted with the latter it tastes much like you'd expect a drink squeezed out of the bar rag would taste.

    2. Re:Mix fav beverages? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The product is called "Diet Coke", not "Diet Coca-Cola".

      Generally, the diet versions use the "Coke" name, while the regular versions use "Coca-Cola". Of course, Coca-Cola Zero uses the full name because it's a diet that tastes like regular! In fact, The Coca-Cola company doesn't consider it part of the "Diet Coke" line, but rather part of the "Coca-Cola" line of products.

    3. Re:Mix fav beverages? by generic-man · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sadly, Pepsi Kona never made it in the marketplace.

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    4. Re:Mix fav beverages? by BWJones · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wow...... thanks? I guess you can chalk it up to my using the brand name on this Slashdot post instead of my usual reference to most cola products as "sodas". When I go to get a Coke, it is usually referenced by going for a soda.

      Although, it's nice to know that Coca-Cola marketing folks spend time on Slashdot. ;-)

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    5. Re:Mix fav beverages? by luder · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just a warning. If you ever come to Portugal, never ask for a Kona: you would be asking for 'cunt'. Literally.

    6. Re:Mix fav beverages? by cei · · Score: 5, Funny

      I was always amused that the marketing lines were "Enjoy Coca-Cola!" but only "Taste Diet Coke!" proving my theory that diet colas cannot be enjoyed...

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    7. Re:Mix fav beverages? by CrowScape · · Score: 4, Funny

      So it's an improvement over regular Bud then?

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  3. Soulless marketing by Toby+The+Economist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > The lightly carbonated, mid-calorie beverage, which is designed to appeal to
    > adult consumers, is yet another example how The Coca-Cola Company reaches out to
    > new audiences and addresses new beverage occasions.

    Spew, vomit, hurl, etc.

    It's true what they say, about marketing people having sold their souls.

  4. How 'bout some real sugar by LJWhorfin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    all these varieties of Coke -- how about one the puts REAL sugar back in the recipe instead of high fructose corn syrup. Jolt used to be this (real sugar and twice the caffeine -- was their slogan).. now jolt is corn syrup too (as of about 5 years ago around here). Oh -- and stop sellting the 8oz glass bottles for $1 each... i can buy 2 liters for that but i prefer the glass container.

    1. Re:How 'bout some real sugar by Nali · · Score: 5, Informative

      Kosher-for-Passover Coke is made with real sugar.

    2. Re:How 'bout some real sugar by djward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Blue Sky, Whole Foods 365 Brand, and many other sodas sold at "natural" food stores use real cane sugar as well, and they're quite good. Can't buy them from a vending machine in the office though.

    3. Re:How 'bout some real sugar by 11223 · · Score: 4, Informative
      The American sugar growers have basically bought off Congress to put huge tariffs on imported sugar, thus allowing them to keep the price of sugar artifically high in the US. Furthermore the government gives huge loans to the US sugar buyers, which they are allowed to repay in sugar for some number of cents per pound... if they can't sell it on the open market for more than that, they'll just dump it on the government. Basically it's a form of price fixing by the government.


      If we got rid of these rediculous tariffs and subsidies sugar would be cheap enough to use in soft drinks in the US.

    4. Re:How 'bout some real sugar by woobieman29 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Funny you should mention this.... I am back at college after 10 years and my Macro Economics professor just used this tariff in our last class as en example of bad governmental policy. The whole thing is just assinine.

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    5. Re:How 'bout some real sugar by Ceribia · · Score: 5, Informative

      If your looking for real sugar come buy your pop in Canada, our Coke still has it.

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    6. Re:How 'bout some real sugar by kesuki · · Score: 4, Interesting

      it's not just tarrifs, brazillian cane sugar is being converted into ethanol, which the vast majority of brazillian drivers use because the cost is so much lower. Brazil wants to export ethanol to the states too, because they'd make as much or more money as they were making exporting sugar before we had rediculous tarrifs. of course big corn doesn't want cheap brazilian ethanol flooding their market. ethanol production has propped up the corn price, which is already at pretty impressive lows, and big corn states like minnesota are planning on going to E20 and more states are mandating the use of E10, so basically the only way to allow brazillian ethanol imports without a tarrif would be to require a nation wide e-10 or better roll out.. not something the corn lobby could easily push through as say a tarrif on ethanol.

      Just going to E-10 would shift billions of dollars into local agroculture and away from mid-east oil dependancy, and it's been proven that e-10 has reduced emmisions over straight up gasoline. would be nice if we had a president who would have championed alternative fuels instead of passing billions in oil industry subsidies*...

      *= if one counts the iraq war is an oil indiustry subsidy, because it basically is.

    7. Re:How 'bout some real sugar by NMerriam · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Exactly. One of the things I miss about living in NYC was that it was easy to buy Kosher Coke any time of the year. Pure cane sugar, baby!

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    8. Re:How 'bout some real sugar by kfg · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Yes. I am going to hell."

      We don't have one of those. God just kvetches at you for all eternity.

      "Borrow the chariot? Do you remember that time a billion and half years ago, Tuesday, 4:47 P.M., when you. . ., and did you ever call, every write?"

      I hate it when he gives me two ties and the first time I wear one them he looks at me, sighs, and says, in his basic tone of voice:

      "The other one you didn't like?"

      Oy! Such a noodge.

      KFG

    9. Re:How 'bout some real sugar by DasBub · · Score: 3, Informative

      Little bit of chemistry info here...

      What we generally call "sugar" is named sucrose or dextrose. Sucrose is a disaccharide which means that it's made of two smaller monosaccharides, namely Glucose and Fructose.

      One way to reduce the cost of your softdrink or other prepared food is to use something referred to as "Invert Sugar". Here's how you do it:

      Take some real sugar, sucrose, and break the bond between the glucose and the fructose, then let them recombine. When you do this, the glucose and fructose actually bond in a different way which makes the substance 1.3 times as sweet as sucrose. It's identical to regular sugar except for that one key bond, and you've instantly cut down the amount you need to add to your product.

      So when you read a list of ingredients and it says "Glucose/Fructose", you're likely eating invert sugar.

      Incidentally, a natural source of invert sugar is honey.

    10. Re:How 'bout some real sugar by Kiryat+Malachi · · Score: 3, Informative

      Parve is actually a very specific meaning within the general meaning of kosher. Parve foods contain no milk, no milk by-product; nor do they contain meat or animal by-products. (Fish is considered parve; poultry is not. Interestingly, while most parve foods may be consumed with meat, fish cannot.) Kosher-marked foods follow the laws of kashrut, but may contain dairy or meat.

      Traditionally, the markings are:

      K or a circled U - Kosher.
      A D by the U/K - Kosher, contains dairy.
      Pareve, parve or p or P - Parve, contains no dairy.

      Generally speaking, kosher meat isn't packaged, so I'm not aware of any generally accepted marking for a kosher meat. Thinking about it, though, there are kosher hot dogs; they must have some marking on them, but I can't for the life of me think of it.

      (A cousin is a shoichet - a kosher slaughterer/butcher.)

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  5. so.. by Turn-X+Alphonse · · Score: 5, Funny

    So they're putting coffee flavour in coke.. How.. odd coke tastes vile, why would you want to add a bitter taste to it? "oohh it's like eating coal while sucking on a lemon" comes to mind.

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    1. Re:so.. by kitzilla · · Score: 3, Funny

      If I has mod points left, you'd get them. I just spewed coal-and-lemon beverage on my screen. ;-)

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    2. Re:so.. by Turn-X+Alphonse · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Stop drinking it for a while (couple of weeks).. I changed to fruit juices and now when I taste coke it tastes vile.. nothing tastes like coke.. it's just.. blergh.. I'm currently sucking on fruit juices instead. Much nicer flavours andI'm not being drugged to enjoy them (flavour enhancers in coke and such).

      --
      I like muppets.
  6. Picture of the actual product by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
  7. Been done before by Rich0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I remember trying some of this horrible brew.

    Then again, this sort of thing is pretty popular in Japan - so maybe its just taste...

  8. Anyone try Pepsi Kona? by BTWR · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In 1996, I was in Philadephia for the summer, and it was a test city for Pepsi's own Coffee Cola: Pepsi Kona. It was actually quite good, and my friends and I liked it. It must not have tested well enough, cuz it never was fully developed. After the Crystal Pepsi fiasco a few years earlier, Pepsi decided not to market new products countrywide, and always start with a few test cities. Hopefully, this coke one will taste as decent as the Pepsi one.

  9. Pepsi Kona by Calimus · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not the first time. Back in the mid 90's Pepsi did a test market on a similair product that they called Pepsi Kona - Link . I had some family that worked for them at the time and somehow I ened up with 2 six-packs of the stuff.

    The tase took a little getting used to, but the caffine kick was amazing. I was working 3rd shift at the time so the energy boost was welcomed. 2 Cans before I went to work and I was wired all night.

    I found the caffine buzz to be as good as the same ammount of Jolt but without the sugar shakes to go along with it.

    Coke might be able to pull this off, have to wait and see. It's all going to boil down to taste.

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  10. Re:Ä, not A by esbjorn · · Score: 5, Funny

    In swedish, the word "bläk" means something like "yuck" in english... appropriate, maybe?

  11. Re:Ä, not A by k98sven · · Score: 4, Informative

    I guess we can add a category of umlaut after the Heavy-metal umlaut, namely the Silly marketing umlaut. E.g. Häagen-Dazs.

    I doubt they'll keep that name for the umlaut-saturated Scandinavian market though, since bläck/blæk/blekk means 'ink' in Swedish/Danish/Norwegian, and 'Blä!" is the Swedish equivalent of 'Yuck!'.

  12. Re:Ä, not A by Yusaku+Godai · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While I agree with your comment in general, in this case it's not an umlaut. The bar over a letter is called a macron.

  13. Sounds like Coffee NT by Jepler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A few years ago, some friends and I tried combining cold coffee with carbonated water from a soft-drink machine.

    Because of the taste of the stuff, we christened it "Coffee NT", which stood for "Not Tasty".

    Perhaps we were missing the secret ingredient, though. Corn syrup. Lots of corn syrup.

  14. The only other time I've seen that... by Will_Malverson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here in scenic Idaho, we have a senator named Mike Crapo. His campaign signs always have a nice, tasteful line of stars over the a in his name. I'm guessing he's a bit sensitive about mispronunciations. Either Firefox or Slashdot won't show the character 257.

  15. Re:Soulless marketing... via /. by rbochan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You think the marketers are bad?
    At least they (I mean really, "boost"... just a coincidence eh?) were able to get an "article" posted to slashdot containing a solitary link to the corporate press release along with a one lin blurb about the "new" product. I hope taco got at least a new car out of the deal.

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  16. Beat the rush by kitzilla · · Score: 4, Funny
    Coca-Cola Blak is not just a flavor extension. It is a blend of unique Coke refreshment with the true essence of coffee and has a rich smooth texture and has a coffee-like froth when poured.

    Awesome ... a soft drink with crema. OMFG.

    Do I have to wait until I actually try this soft drink to throw up? Or can I beat the rush and just put a finger down my throat now?

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  17. Good + Good = Vomit by TheRon6 · · Score: 5, Funny

    A few weeks ago, while in a slightly drunken state, I came up with the great idea of mixing Yoo-hoo and gin together with a 1:1 ratio. Both are so great seperate that they must be SUPER great together! I imagine that Coca-Cola may soon face the same bitter-sweet failure I did. It seemed like such a good idea at the time...

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  18. Hear Hear! by wass · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Definitely. American companies put way too much HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) in their products, and it's nasty stuff. About two years ago I decided to avoid HFCS, but still eat sweets like I normally would. Ie, I still ate ice cream, cookies, sodas, cereal, etc, but only those brands that use cane sugar instead of HFCS. You can get good products at places like Whole Foods (pricy) or Trader Joes (similar price or even cheaper than a supermarket). [In fact, Trader Joes cereals, which don't have HFCS, are cheaper than the corresponding kinds from Kelloggs and General Mills which do have HFCS.] Anyway, the interesting result is that, without meaning to, I lost about 15 pounds while still eating all the desserts I wanted, just by avoiding HFCS!.

    One thing is that HFCS seems to do is inhibit the 'full' feeling you get after eating, so you can eat more if your food has HFCS. Great news for food companies, not good news for American health.

    It is annoying because food with real sugar just tastes much better, and is healthier. In most other countries products like Coca-Cola has cane sugar, but here in the USA all products substitute HFCS. I once emailed Coca-Cola about this a few years ago, they said it's up to local bottlers to decide which sweetener to use. And of course they cut corners and go for the cheap stuff.

    Some companies use this to their advantage because ignorant people see CORN instead of SUGAR and think the product is healthier. Ie, Kelloggs Corn Pops used to be called Sugar Pops. By making the change, parents thought Corn sounded much healthier than sugar, so they have no problem giving this cereal to their kids, when it has the same amount of calories, yet uses HFCS instead of cane or beet sugar.

    Unfortunately midwestern corn farmers have alot of political power, and politicians, aiming for approval in the early Iowa primaries, are likely to bow down to these farmers in order to get the party nomination. The corn lobby has huge power, both political and economical, and they choose to market HFCS instead of doing something productive such as growing biofuels with the corn instead.

    Another thing is that it's more expensive to import and use cane sugar than to process corn into HFCS. I am not certain of this, but I would theorize that one big factor is due to the embargo we put on Cuba after Castro came to power in 1959. Cuba was a huge source of cane sugar (their chief export), so the embargo basically crippled their economy overnight and impeded a huge source of sugar cane into the USA. So corn farmers, along with massive chemical processing to produce the HFCS, filled the void.

    Anyway, that is my rant, I hate HFCS, and it's good to see more people becoming aware of it. I really do think that just by substituting cane sugar for HFCS there will be a notable change in America's obesity problem. It probably won't cure the problem, but I think there would be definite effects.

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  19. Should be efficient by theonetruekeebler · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Carbonation has a way of making the stomach absorb things faster. This is why champaigne gives a buzz faster than wine, and why a Coke will amp you up more rapidly than orange juice, which has about the same amount of sugar. So carbonation and high caffeination should be a winning combination, buzz-wise. You can imagine, though, how hard users will crash.

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  20. Re:But what about the flavour? by bsartist · · Score: 3, Informative

    When any number prefixed with a 0 (zero), without a decimal place, such as 0034, 04 or 02, the zero doesn't hold any meaning

    It does if you're a programmer. It means the number is octal (base 8), just like a "0x" prefix means hexadecimal (base 16). Not that it matters for 2, which is the same in decimal, octal, or hex...

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  21. Re:Soulless marketing... via /. by Jace+of+Fuse! · · Score: 3, Funny

    did it while making it look like an "Accident" and didn't have to fork out for a car for taco...

    He doesn't get the car until after the dupe.

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    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"

    Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
  22. Re:But what about the flavour? by uncoveror · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They are trying all kinds of crazy stuff since the loss of Saskra Root ruined the taste of Coke Classic.

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  23. Product launch mad lib by rcw-home · · Score: 4, Funny
    Step one - come up with a word for each of these things:

    • Name of your product
    • Name of the product it works with
    • Your company's name
    • Noun
    • Noun from your company's mission statement
    • Intangible noun from a magazine cover you'd see at a supermarket checkout
    • Adjective you would see on a paint can
    • Noun you would hear an audiophile use
    • Deity you don't believe in
    • Noun you would see on a box of tea
    • Past tense verb you would see on a Materials Safety Data Sheet
    • Category for your product according to your users
    • Defunct Nationality
    • Category for your product according to Marketing
    • Activity your coworkers do that annoys you
    • Three letter business acronym
    • Something your users do in the privacy of their own homes
    • Your VP's name
    • Your department's name
    • Your company name

    Step two - fill in the blanks:

    "_______ is not just a _______ extension. It is a blend of unique _______ _______ with the true essence of _______ and has a rich _______ and has a _______ _______ _______-like _______ when _______. We believe we have created a new category of _______ -- a _______ product in a _______ -- and a whole new _______ experience. This brand is ideal for any part of the _______ when people are looking for renewed energy or simply to _______", said _______, vice president, _______, _______.

  24. Re:Above link is SATIRE by Shawn+is+an+Asshole · · Score: 4, Interesting
    --
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  25. Coca-Cola kills its workers by br00tus · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Coca-Cola has been killing its workers in Colombia. They even had one killed right inside the plant while he was working. Apparently they don't like that the workers are trying to organize a union. There is a global boycott of Coca-Cola products going on right now, which I participate in, I haven't had any Coca-Cola products for several years. The web site for the boycot is Killer Coke.

    I doubt that most of the white, western professionals who read Slashdot will care much about this, some probably will like Coke more than ever considering the kind of talk so many listen to on talk radio and Fox News, but a few will, and I am posting this to inform those few. Working class people tend to be more sympathetic to these things.

  26. Walking and drinking in Japan by tm1rules · · Score: 3, Informative
    ...quite different than the cans of hot coffee that makes walking around in Tokyo so delicious.

    When did you go to Tokyo?

    "It used to be that you wouldn't dream of drinking while walking down the street [in Japan]. " - http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5 ?fl20040320cz.htm

    "Walking and eating [in Japan] is taboo, though you will see local people doing it from time to time, especially in tourist destinations. Still, expect to be glared at or clucked at if you eat (or drink) while perambulating. Ice cream might be an exception, but everything else, including canned drinks should be consumed while standing next to the place where you bought them or sitting on a nearby park bench." - http://www.mediatinker.com/hellotokyo/survival.htm l