Green-label Coke is hitting the shelves, but in Argentina, not in the U.S.
It’s called Coca-Cola Life, and has fewer than half the calories of regular Coke, NPR says. What sets it apart is a zero-calorie natural sweetener, stevia, which is sold here as Truvia and PureVia.
Unlike sweeteners such as saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame, stevia didn’t come from a lab. It comes from a bush in Paraguay. Coca-Cola is using stevia in 45 products worldwide, and in Coca-Cola Life it’s blended with regular sugar to reduce a natural bitter aftertaste. (That’s why green Coke isn’t zero-calorie like Diet Coke.)
The blend keeps the taste pretty consistent with regular Coke, NPR says:
I bought a bottle of Coca-Cola Life at a local supermarket along with a bottle of regular Coke, poured them over ice, and tasted them side by side. To my taste buds, they’re almost indistinguishable; Coca-Cola Life may be a tiny bit sweeter.
The bottles for green Coke are also “green.” They’re made of plastic that is 30 percent vegetable fiber, and are entirely recyclable, NPR says.
There don’t seem to be any immediate plans to bring Coca-Cola Life to the U.S. The company may not need to, since Diet Coke is the second-best-selling soda here, behind regular Coca-Cola. About one-third of Coke’s North American sales come from zero- or low-calorie drinks, the International Business Times says. In the Latin American market, those drinks account for about 18 percent of sales.
Would you drink green Coke, or do you think we have too many Coke colors — red, silver, gold, black — already?
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