Wed 28 Sep 2011
Most people, yourself included, will SWEAR they can tell Coke from Pepsi. You’re 100% confident you can.
Except you’re wrong. On average HALF of us cannot tell the difference in a blind taste test.
I ran the test today. Two tests actually. People were first asked to identify Cups A&B which contained either plain Coke and plain Pepsi. Next, they were asked to identify the Coke and Pepsi variants in Cups C,D,E,F & G.
CUP A: Pepsi (P)
CUP B: CocaCola (CC)
CUP C: Coke Zero (CZ)
CUP D: Diet Pepsi (DP)
CUP E: Pepsi Max (PM)
CUP F: Caffeine Free Coke (CFC)
CUP G: Diet Coke (DC)
X MEANS WRONG
CORRECT ANSWER: P CC CZ DP PM CFC DC CONFIDENCE CUP A CUP B CUP C CUP D CUP E CUP F CUP G SCORE ---------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- Response 1: 8 CC X P X DCC X DP PM CCZ X CFCC X 2/7 Response 2: 3 CC X P X CCZ X DCC X ? X PM X PC X 0/7 Response 3: 10 P CC DCC X DP DP X ? X ? X 3/7 Response 4: 9 P CC DP X DCC X PM X CFC CCZ X 3/7 Response 5: 6 CC X P X CFC X PM X DC X CCZ X PM X 0/7 Response 6: 0 P CC DP X CCZ X CFC X ? X ? X 2/7
It’s even worse than that. Throw Sprite into the mix (blindfolded of course), and a bunch of people will still get it wrong.
… And then there is bottled vs tap water: People claim bottled water just tastes better, even when shown that most bottled water (Dasani, etc) comes from the tap (“local municipal water supplies”)