I've had Blak, not sure when I'll go bak
A few days ago I came across Coca-Cola Blak for sale and decided to give it a try. If you haven't heard of it yet, Blak is a new Coca-Cola soft drink combining the flavors of cola and coffee. Carbonated coffee drinks have been tried before without much success, but I was still curious to try this one out.
I like Coke, I like coffee, and I can see how the two could be good together. And Blak does a pretty good job pulling off the combination. It's sweet and the coffee flavor comes through cleanly. It could maybe use a little more carbonation and could drop the aspartame to take away the "diet" taste (it's already sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, perhaps overly so), but all in all, not bad.
The problem is that I'm not sure when I will drink it again. Once is great for novelty, but I can't see it becoming a regular beverage of choice for me. When I want a Coke, I'd rather have a regular Coke. And when I want coffee, I'd rather have fresh coffee. It could be a good option for long drives when I want caffeine without having to resort to gas station brew, though even then I'm not sure I'd choose it over other bottled coffee drinks.
If my reaction is typical, Coca-Cola will have a hard time finding a sizeable market for this stuff and the coffee soda market will be left to niche players like Manhattan Special. Anyone else tried Blak? Love it? Hate it?
Comments
A co-worker brought me a 4-oz. sample to try (I have an unopened bottle of it here on my desk), and when I smelled it (I was on the phone), I thought it was a cross between Jagermeister and overly sweet root beer or something. I find it a little too cloying in the finish. It's a decent enough drink, but I'm with you - I'd order an iced coffee (or a diet coke) before going BlaK.
I won't go back.
Posted by: Mags | April 26, 2006 2:59 PM
I tried Blak and I thought it was the nastiest thing I've tasted in who know how long! Uck.
Posted by: Matthew | April 30, 2006 3:08 PM
I tried iut and now I'm done.
--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com
Posted by: RC of strangeculture | April 30, 2006 3:43 PM
I feel similarly. The drink was OK, not great, but it's priced like Red Bull, not like other soft drinks. For $6.50 for a 4-pack of 8oz bottles, I can't see buying it again.
Posted by: voorhees | May 12, 2006 9:46 AM
I loved it. A fan of both coffee and coke, I was very interested in it as well.
But I took it a step further and added half n half to it with a lot of ice and I thought it was wonderful!
Posted by: Mary | May 14, 2006 9:43 PM