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This shouldn't be too surprising, as caffeine itself has a flavor. It is somewhat bitter, which is one reason why it's particularly common in root beer.

• dimaggiosghost 9y ago
  Did you mean that it's not common in root beer? Wiki says that root beer has little to no caffeine. Root beer is so sweet that I would think it could mask the bitterness. I wonder if the plants that originally were brewed into it just didn't have any caffeine. Do the ingredients to coke naturally have caffeine, or was that a substitute for the original alkaloid? I.e., is decaf coke because the removed the caffeine, or is caffeinated coke that way because it was added?
  • adrianmonk 9y ago
    Root beer doesn't naturally have caffeine, but sometimes it's added for flavor.
  • mathw 9y ago
    Coca-Cola lists caffeine as an ingredient in the UK. I don't know why caffeine was originally added - maybe for flavour, maybe for the stimulant effects, possibly because of having to not have cocaine in it anymore...
    • detaro 9y ago
      The "original" Coca-Cola had caffeine as well - it's in the cola nut, which is where the "cola" part of the name comes from.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]