Do you like Coke or Pepsi? This is one of the age-old questions asked when getting to know someone. Due to the pandemic, my weekend was pretty dry. Instead of spreading the virus, I decided to answer that “age-old question” of Coke versus Pepsi. Naturally, I went to the store to buy 8 different bottles of soda. In my basket was Coke, Pepsi, Cherry Coke, Cherry Pepsi, Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Coke Zero, and Pepsi Zero Sugar. After my arrival at my house, I laid out my sodas and regretted my choices. It was a lot of soda, and it was going to take a lot of time.

While trying the sodas, I made a chart explaining why I liked a certain soda, and why I didn’t like others. The results are as follows:

Coke: 9.5/10 < Pepsi: 10/10
Cherry Coke: 9/10 > Cherry Pepsi: 8/10
Diet Coke: 3/10 < Diet Pepsi: 6/10
Coke Zero: -2/10 < Pepsi Zero Sugar: 7/10

When testing the sodas, I judged them based on taste, fizz, and general “cola” flavor.

As you can see, I liked Pepsi better for most of the taste tests. I noticed that the soda tended to have a stronger “cola” taste, and more bubbles. But when it came to Cherry Coke v.s. Cherry Pepsi, I noticed that the Coke had a lot more bubbles than the other Cokes I had tried, and that it had a strong cherry flavor. The Pepsi, on the other hand, was sweeter than the Coke and had most of its cherry flavoring in the aftertaste.

You’ll also notice that I gave Coke Zero a -2 out of 10. I’m not sure why, but the soda didn’t seem to have any “cola” taste at all, and the aftertaste resembled cough medicine. The Pepsi Zero Sugar honestly just tasted like a normal Pepsi, but with a fake sweetener aftertaste.

Dayton Burlingame, senior, prefers Coke over Pepsi “because it tastes like caramel water.” In my opinion, that is the whole purpose of Pepsi, or any cola-flavored soda, is to have a slight caramel flavor. And as for the water part, all sodas have water in them. So it is, technically, caramel-flavored water.

In the end, the soda you prefer is up to you. You don’t have to agree with anyone on Coke or Pepsi, and you don’t have to like soda at all. If you ever feel bored over your weekends, or if you’re in quarantine, go ahead and try this experiment for yourself! Maybe you’ll find that the sodas I ranked really low, turn out to be your favorites.