Afri Cola Zero

When someone first mentioned Afri Cola to me, I had the assumption that it was from Africa like some others I'd heard of. The beginning 'Afri' certainly lends itself to that idea. I ended up coming across some and grabbed a bottle. I wondered if this naming had more to do with the era it was created in and trying to appeal to Europeans of the 1930's who were wild about the sub-continent at the time. This naming gave it an exotic allure. Then I dug into the brand to learn more about it. It's actually a German-made soda nearly 100 years old. It originates in 1931, created by F. Blumhoffer Nachfolger GmbH, an even older company based in Cologne. The goal was to create a German parallel to Coca-Cola. While it was very popular, it began losing market share to American colas after the 1960's and was sold to Mineralbrunnen Überkingen-Teinach AG in the late 1990's. Talking to Berlin locals, it apparently is known for its caffeine content, not unlike Jolt in the U.S. The caffeine content was quite high in the early days, then was toyed with until consumer backlash brought the caffeine back to its original level of 250 mg/L. As a comparison, Coca-Cola Classic has about 145 mg/L and Jolt around 200 mg/L.

Now, as it turns out, I have accidentally grabbed the "zero" version... which isn't ideal for a first taste since zero-calorie versions usually taste differently. I'm also not sure what to say about the interesting shape of the bottle, other than, it's unusual but hefty and solid. As cola flavors go, it's not great. I'm going to chalk that up more to being the zero-calorie version than anything else. The kola nut flavor is a bit sharp and is fleeting as well. Not a lot more to say about it. I'm going to try to hunt down the original flavor to compare but this "zero" variety is not very attractive to me.