Comment by pogue
19 hours ago
The guy on YouTube who just recreated the formula of Coca-Cola with HPLC & etc should take a crack at it
Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola (It Took Me A Year) by LabCoatz https://youtu.be/TDkH3EbWTYc
19 hours ago
The guy on YouTube who just recreated the formula of Coca-Cola with HPLC & etc should take a crack at it
Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola (It Took Me A Year) by LabCoatz https://youtu.be/TDkH3EbWTYc
Instructions unclear. Taste-tested WD40.
It smells so fucking good though, don't you think? You almost want to taste it.
No that was the Pepsi
Discussed here:
Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46543509 - Jan 2026 (219 comments)
Coca-cola's "secret formula" is also just marketing.
The title is clickbait though, he admits near the end it is not in fact a perfect replication. I could feel this of course, long before even starting to watch it. Still, upsetting because otherwise it’s an entertaining video.
The main ingredient he is missing is coca leaf. I used to buy Mate de Coca tea from Peru/Boliva no problem. It's a decocanized coca leaf tea. Shame he didn't hunt around or try harder to get it.
He said his first order of decocanised cocoa leaf was seized at the border. I can see that discouraging trying again, esp when he's trying to make something others could reproduce.
He did find a pretty good substitute for the primary cocoa leaf ingredient though. Also, what he made was virtually indistinguishable in the taste tests. One person said that his tasted closer to the 2L of coke than the can of coke did, which suggests the final bit could just be carbonation level of the soda stream.
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