We got pretty giddy when we read NPR’s headline that Coca-Cola was testing the market for ‘Green’ Coke in Argentina. Turns out, the liquid itself isn’t actually Nickelodeon Gak green, as we had imagined, but the bottle’s logo is set against a green background instead of the normal eye-catching Coca-Cola red. The green, lower-calorie Coke is called “Coca-Cola Life”, and it is being marketed by the company as “natural”. The lighter Coca-Cola has 108 calories; regular Coke has 250.
The “natural” claim refers to the soda being sweetened with both sugar and Stuvia, “An extract from the leaves of a shrub in the chrysanthemum family that grows in Latin America,” which is 400 times sweeter than table sugar, reports NPR. That sounds a bit sickening to us, but hey, we’re sure those Coca-Cola marketing gurus know what they’re doing.
The soda debuted in Argentina a mere three weeks ago, and NPR journalist Bob Mondello was able to test out the product while on vacation. His thoughts? Coca-Cola Life is almost indistinguishable from regular Coke. If anything, Coca-Cola Life tastes a bit sweeter, reports Mondello. The cashier at the store who sold Mondello the bottle said the product is selling pretty well, “if not quite leaping off the shelves.” If the product does become a hit, it will expand to other markets; if not, the product will simply disappear with no harm done to the company’s image.
Turns out, this new Coca-Cola product isn’t even close to as awesome as another product being sold by vendors at the beach in Colombia: Coke bottles made entirely of ice. Apparently, beach vendors can hardly keep them in stock.
Check out Coke’s heart-melting add for its new “Coca-Cola Life” below.