Posted by HansVanEijsden 4 days ago
I am not even much of a coca cola person. Usually I drink Pepsi or mountain dew but this video is one of the most high efforts video I have ever watched. Period.
massive respects to LabCoatz. I seriously didn't expect this level of quality, its shocking how good youtube is. This feels so professional and well thought of in a way
I am still in high school and I was studying chemistry. I don't enjoy chemistry (In fact I complain often so much about being forced to study chem to go to a decent CS uni that even AI LLM's wrapped of 2025 picked it up on my admittedly hate on chemistry https://hn-wrapped.kadoa.com/Imustaskforhelp)
I think that the chemistry (atleast what I study) is fundamentally different from the science shown here. This is the chemistry which genuinely attracted me. Studying biomolecules and seeing the structures some of them were even familiar.
I don't know but in a sense it kind of helps an genuine interest in the subject while being genuinely practical so I thank this video creator.
Some videos are just gems, this is one of them. I was constantly thinking surely Coke is so large of a company, everyone's heard of the secret, surely someone else must have made something so effective ( I was thinking of a large company) but it turns out that large companies dont really end up doing this and its the one man shop with genuine passion to his craft (in this chemistry) which really ends up doing spectacular.
Massive respects. Can't recommend it enough right now.
Also I am thinking of one thing but what if an non profit can be established who can produce such bottles of "lab cola" perhaps at a low-mid --> high scale.
I'd genuinely support and imagine that you can buy lab cola which can be environmentally safe and the proceeds go to social causes which you can align to. Wouldn't that just be amazing?
This opens up so much more possibilities!!
Edit: I thought about the non profit idea even more and I think that this can position itself as for fundraising as well. Imagine this genuine movement of slowly owning what we actually eat no more secret recipes. This seems to be the open source of Food and I am all for it!
If one worries about the supply chain, they can supply it via amazon or local providers (yes I know Amazon is morally shitty at times but I feel like this might answer some questions that people might have about that coca cola has worldwide presence, how is it gonna compete)
One could also bootstrap the whole thing and directly sell to customers or businesses as well (the businesses can have genuine value to it, I don't think that at scale, there is much of a difference in pricing and some amount of pricing gains are okay for what its worth if the mission is noble)
Best part is that Coca Cola can do nothing about all of it and the ideas are limitless, the bottleneck was the recipe which has now been effectively reverse engineered haha. There is a genuine ability for people to bring change in beverage industry. I am certainly hyped for what its worth. Someone please contact LabCoatz if you have affiliates and give him this idea if possible or anyone implement it themselves if they follow a similar field/expertise to this. If so, I would be your first customer for the non profit :)
But cheers for showing support to high quality science content on YT. Appreciation is a great instinct to nurture.
unfortunately thast long after i might have learned how to do that problem solving. maybe if i go back to school ill try to find such classes. i imagine biochem also has a lot of that
I could probably blame some parts of the education system but I don't think that the system can probably change regarding it. Still, I just wanted to share my frustrations regarding it where everything kind of becomes overcompetitive while you have a hobby in computers and I feel like genuine passion towards computing/linux and other things and want to make it a job because in my case I feel like money's valuable only in the end to do something that I enjoy and in this case, I can get both paid and enjoy without having to go through a retirement phase (or so my thoughts on FIRE, I'd still invest/save most of the money as money is rather not the big part of why I am doing this in my opinion) and Chem doesn't have anything related to it for what its worth.
I still have to go read chemistry though. But I don't know why but something in this video genuinely clicked chemistry for me where I could watch a 100 videos like this (although the point can be that I am now doing it out of my own free will and not a rigorous syllabus with tests and rewards/punishments systems basically)
Sorry for the yap, just wanted to get it off my chest. I have nothing against chem as a subject tho, I am sure that its interesting and this video sorts of proves it but I feel like I am more inclined towards software engineering but it sucks that I have to study chem to go do what I actually want in life (which requires a degree for maximal benefit which requires good marks aka a decent/huge focus on chem as well right now)
> But cheers for showing support to high quality science content on YT. Appreciation is a great instinct to nurture.
Thanks! I appreciate it, Have a nice day!
(Also edit once again) but I want to touch on the reason why I feel appreciating it even more so is because a single guy is able to compete against (essentially) a 200 Billion $ GIANT.
Such levels of individual freedom and achievements should be celebrated by the society just for the sake of it (and in this case we can see some other benefits as well as I told in the initial comment)
They empower Individual youth and Individuals in general and its very empowering. Generally the same reason I love Open source as well. Bringing real change to the world and leaving a fingerprint on Humanity I suppose. Even small things like these provide me and maybe others hope against darkness created by system of corruption being witnessed most around the world and monopolization/ big businesses doing shady practices most often.
That being said: The thing about soda that most people get wrong is the level of fizz. Nothing is comparable to commercial soda just based off that. So, when you start off from a lower level baseline of "your fizz" < "their fizz", and add in recipe differences...well, it'll be a fun watch, regardless.
Small edit on this: They used a soda stream, which definitely doesn't add as much carbonation as commercial equipment does. Based only upon that, the taste profile will end up different for most, and despite all the science involved, it will lead to the over use of other flavors to compensate. Respectable try, however. He should sell premixed stuff on his website, although I imagine that is a regulatory nightmare, given that some of the stuff he used isn't food grade.
The non-nutritive sweeteners in their pure form are wild too. They are 2 + orders of magnitude sweeter than sugar and they come in very fine powders. You have to mask up when you work with them if you don’t want to taste vague sweetness for awhile.
What makes this video revolutionary is he was able to find an alternative to the coca leaf that has a near identical flavor. If it's as good tasting as advertised this knowledge could empower 3rd party producers to make a coke drink that will finally rival Coca-Cola in popularity.
* Importing coca-cola extract with coca extract is legal
* Coca Cola is significantly more popular than Pepsi in Australia
This will bring down marketshare significantly. It's incredibly hassle, which is likely the point. I am looking for good and cheap sodastream cola syrup, but they are very expensive.
I think sooner or later, everyone who drinks a lot of soda will try the store brand as well as other colas that are non-belligerents in the cola wars. Some of them are ok, some are good for some mixed drinks, some are so bad I won't even finish the pack. Even though I prefer Pepsi, if I knew brand X was pretty close to Coke, I might choose it when it costs less and money is tight.
There's a lot of things that aren't great for you at one quantity but are better or necessary at another.
As they say, the most dangerous thing in the ocean is the water.