New Coca-Cola Life (Newsagent) [By @Cinabar]

There is a new Cola on the shelves, as Coca-Cola Life has just been launched here in the UK. I’m pleased to say that it doesn’t have any names on the bottle, so that is good at least. The wrapper is different to the usual Coke offering and is mostly green, with the line “Lower Calorie - Sweetness From Natural Sources”. I was trying to work out if this meant that the drink was all natural, and to be honest came up on a bit of a blank. It contains E150d as its colouring, which translates too Sulfite Ammonia Caramel, which doesn’t sound natural, but I have to admit to being a bit lost in the technicalities. Phosphoric Acid also doesn’t sound very pleasant, but I only read the Wikipedia page, I’m no scientist.
What is curious though is that despite this being sweetened with Stevia, a natural but low calorie sweetener, there is still quite a bit of sugar. There are 136 calories in the bottle (68 per half bottle), so this is neither a completely natural product, or a calorie free one, it is in some grey area in between. Which is a bit of an odd target audience.
That aside, the taste is actually really nice. It is sweet yes, but did taste a lot more like proper coke. I did prefer it to Diet Coke, but have to admit I never liked Coke Zero and proper Coke has too many calories for regular purchase. I have become accustomed to Diet Coke, but this is actually a rather nice alternative. The problem is I switched to Diet Coke as it has almost no calories, I eat enough snacks/naughty food, and I’d rather my liquid intake didn’t count towards my calorie intake. So as much I liked this, I’ll be back to buying Diet Coke I’m afraid.
It is a shame they didn’t make an all Stevia sweetened drink, with a far lower calorie count as then you would have swayed me into buying it. I guess Coke didn’t want a third ultra low calorie drink out on the market, and they though this would be something new. They could have gone with an all natural product, or an almost calorie free drink sweetened with natural sources (Stevia) but they didn’t commit to either idea in the end.

By Cinabar