How do you think "New Coke" happened? Malcolm Gladwell has the details in one of his books. You remember back when Pepsi used to do those taste test ads saying more people preferred Pepsi? Coke repeated the tests internally and found they were right (barely).
So Coke decided to reformulate. Pepsi is sweeter than Coke, so that is what Coke did. They repeated their taste tests, got good results and told the whole world.
Where they had screwed up is that they used small containers for their latter taste tests. People are quite happy for sweetness in small quantities, but as the volume of drink gets larger they prefer less sweetness "density". Naturally the new Coke was far too sweet and there was the resultant backlash.
TL/DR: A major contributor to Coke messing up "New" Coke was using too small testing cups.
It is interesting to me that so many people seem to believe that it's difficult to distinguish between different cola products. I'm a programmer at a game studio and when I randomly asserted that I could distinguish between Coke and Pepsi they immediately scoffed and said that I could take the test, but no one passes the test. Blind test results? 100% correct (the test only had Coke and Pepsi proper, no random RC cola.)
I don't think I'm a freak; can the average Joe not distinguish between the taste of Coke and Pepsi?
It depends how you do the tests. People in the US tend to have drinks very cold, which makes it harder to tell the difference. Doing "sip" tests makes a difference too.
I've seen (uncontrolled not-scientific just-for-fun) tests where blindfolded volunteers could not tell the difference between coke and 7up / sprite.
For sure I agree with you; I think that I'd easily be able to tell the difference between pepsi and coke. But I've never tested myself.
No, I don't think it's unusual. I've watched a former colleague (now the state superintendent of schools) successfully identify not only pepsi from coke, but coke, diet coke (which he drinks regularly), and caffine-free diet coke from each other in a blind test.
Perhaps you're a supertaster. I think I am; I find many green vegetables taste absolutely disgusting, which is a common problem among supertasters as they can taste certain substances normals can't.
That's an interesting thought, I hadn't even considered anything along those lines. After reading about it for a bit I find that I cannot disqualify it from being a possibility. I've also read studies about having other senses heightened due to the lack of strength in other senses; specifically, due to a nasal inflammation condition I have I've always had difficulties with my sense of scent. Maybe I have a heightened sense of taste to compensate? Either way it's something interesting to think about, so thanks. :)
Olfactory and gustatory analysis of flavors are intricately linked; losing smell severely diminishes one's ability to discriminate between subtly different aromas. Indeed, smell generally dominates here. So I don't think that's what happened.
