Coke tastes good, but kola nuts cause cancer!

You who are reading this article now may also be a cola lover. So, which cola school do you belong to?

Coffee contains coffee beans, tea contains tea leaves, and cocoa contains cocoa beans. In the beginning, cola also contained cola nut extract. However, just as wife cakes are not given to wives, mainstream cola drinks now do not contain cola nuts at all . If you want to drink "authentic" cola, you need to travel back more than 60 years.

Kola Nut | Antoshananarivo/Wikimedia Commons

Two kinds of trees that produce "Cola"

Kola nut is the fruit of the genus Cola in the Malvaceae family (the old classification system is Sterculiaceae). The genus Cola has more than 100 members, which are widely distributed in tropical Africa. The main species that can produce cola nut are Cola acuminata and C. nitida. Both types of cola nut are large trees more than 20 meters high, with male and female flowers, and five yellow sepals with purple-red radial stripes in the center.

After pollination, the female flower will develop into a pentagonal aggregate follicle (similar to the star anise in spices). Each small fruit is the size of a palm, with a wrinkled surface, and contains several large and plump seeds.

Flower of the glossy kola nut | Michael Hermann / Wikimedia Commons

Kola nut seeds may be white, yellow, or brownish red and have an aroma. The seeds contain alkaloids such as caffeine , which makes them bitter and are used to extract caffeine in the modern chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

In its native countries of West Africa (such as Mali), kola nuts, like coffee and tobacco, are a favorite of the local indigenous people. People roast and crush its seeds, then chew and eat them , or add them to drinks such as milk and tea.

In ancient desert monotheistic cultures, kola nut seeds were the only food that was allowed to refresh people. For hundreds of years, African merchants crossed the harsh Sahel arid zone and transported kola nuts from the rainforest to the north of the Sahara. In 1886 , the shiny kola nut crossed the ocean and became the raw material of Coca-Cola , becoming famous in the United States across the Atlantic.

The fruit of the shiny kola nut | Michael Hermann / Wikimedia Commons

Initially, people used Coca-Cola as medicine

Before the birth of Coca-Cola, the level of medical development and the number of doctors in the United States were far from meeting people's needs, and alternative therapies were very popular (as for the efficacy, let's not talk about it...). Pharmacists were the main force in providing alternative therapies at the time. They would prepare various recovery potions and healing potions and sell them to patients. The raw materials for preparing potions were also all kinds of things, one of which was soda water . Many pharmacies had soda water making machines, and pharmacists did not know what specific therapeutic effects it had, it was just popular.

There was a pharmacist named John Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1885, he brewed a wine with coca leaves added to it to relieve the morphine addiction of veterans injured during the Civil War. But Mr. Pemberton was unlucky and caught up with the Prohibition Movement before he made any money. Seeing that this good business was about to end, he replaced the alcohol with soda water with cola nut extract, and Coca Cola was born.

Another ingredient in the original Coca-Cola, coca leaves, was removed from the ingredient list as early as 1903 because they contain cocaine.

Coke machine installed in Fleeman's pharmacy, 1948 | Wikimedia Commons

The source of caffeine and bitterness in Coca-Cola was originally the seeds of the bright cola nut. But later people found that cola nuts contain a large amount of nitroso compounds , which are carcinogenic . Therefore, Coca-Cola Company stopped using natural cola nuts in 1955 and directly added caffeine and artificial flavors.

Coca-Cola's Secret Formula

Finally, let's discuss the "secret" formula of Coca-Cola. In addition to the public carbonation, sugar, caffeine, etc., the main ingredients of Coca-Cola also include the "7X" compound spice formula, which is both a trade secret and an urban legend that people love to talk about. In 2012, a radio program in the United States claimed to have obtained the secret formula of Coca-Cola - of course, it was quickly denied by Coca-Cola Company - regardless of whether this formula is true or not, let's take a look at what is in it.

Come, taste this cup of fat house water | Pixabay

The formula includes seven ingredients: ethanol, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and three essential oils from citrus plants - orange oil, lemon oil, and neroli oil . Orange oil and lemon oil come from the volatile essential oils in the oil glands of the outer peel of oranges or tangerines and lemons; neroli oil is extracted from the orange flower, but not the flower of the sweet orange fruit, but the flower of the bitter orange Citrus × aurantium, a hybrid of grapefruit and tangerine.

The most common bitter orange variety in Asia is C. × a. var. daidai, which has fruits that do not fall off during the winter, hence the name "daidai flower" | Desert Porcupine

As for the equally famous Pepsi Cola, which was born more than ten years later than Coca-Cola, the word Pepsi comes from pepsin , and it is obvious that it was originally used as a medicine to treat indigestion. The ingredients of early Pepsi Cola included carbohydrates, essential oils, vanilla, cola nuts, etc.

Whether you're a Pepsi fan or a Coca-Cola fan, you have the original cola nut to thank.

Author: Frost Moth

Cover image source: Antoshananarivo / Wikimedia Commons

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