Count Ivan Vasquez among those who aren’t excited by the prospect of the Coca-Cola Company producing Coke with cane sugar instead of corn syrup in the United States, as it already does in Mexico.
Mr. Vasquez, who sells Coke imported from Mexico at his four Oaxacan-style Mexican restaurants in Southern California, said he doubted that the exact flavor of the Mexican version could be replicated in the United States — in the same way that Tijuana-style tacos in California don’t quite taste the same as the real thing.
“It’s going to get close, but you’re always going to miss that flavor,” Mr. Vasquez, 43, said from one of his restaurants on Wednesday night. Hours earlier,
President Trump announced
that the Coca-Cola Company had agreed to use “REAL cane sugar in Coke” instead of corn syrup — a change the company did not immediately confirm.
In much of the world, Coke is made with cane sugar. The majority of Coke sold in the United States is made with corn syrup, a far cheaper alternative used since
a switch in the 1980s
.
Coca-Cola began importing Mexican Coke to Texas in 2005, and later expanded distribution. Now “
MexiCoke
” is available in supermarkets, bodegas and taquerias in neighborhoods with large Hispanic populations across the United States. It has also retained
a cultlike following
online. “Mexican Coke just tastes better” was the title of a recent Reddit thread.
That may help to explain why people are wiling to pay $3.50 for a 355 milliliter glass bottle of Mexican Coke at Tahona Mercado, a bottle shop and specialty market in San Francisco’s upscale Nob Hill neighborhood. That is two dollars more than the price of a can of American coke on Instacart, the popular online grocery service.
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