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Ask HN: How to go about reverse engineering and deformulating a beverage at home

52 points by World_Peace ↗ HN
I'm traveling in Japan and tried a canned soda which I loved, and would love to be able to recreate at home as it isn't available stateside. I've searched for food labs near me that could help me reverse engineer it, but I'd prefer to see how close I can get in just my kitchen.

37 comments

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mannyv
I'd start by buying a few. Open one and let it decarbonate. It's must easier to discern flavors for uncarbonated drinks.

As an example, Coca-cola has cinnamon in it, which is almost impossible to taste when it's carbonated. It pops out when Coke goes flat.

Most sodas will have a citrus component. Japan has odd ones like Yuzu, so try to pick up some essential citrus oils that aren't normal in your home country and are plentiful there.

Then really, just put it onto stuff that you know the flavor of and taste/smell it to see if you can tell what's been added. Dip some white bread into it and see if anything comes out, etc. Don't be afraid to swirl it around in your mouth (like wine) or just breathe it in.

FYI, I was just in Japan and realized that their Sprite has a lot more lime than other countries, which I didn't really like. Normally Sprite is great in hot weather, but the lime just didn't work in the heat IMO.

ktallett
Ramune is really the Lemon/Lime Summer drink in Japan. I have always assumed Sprite was different in Japan as otherwise it is basically the same as Ramune.
js2
> the lime just didn't work in the heat IMO

Well that's because there wasn't enough gin.

nailer
Speaking of sprite, it is a rind-based drink rather than a pulp based drink. It is worth familiarising your palate With the difference between rind and pulp.
chatmasta
My biggest culture shock about Sprite was discovering that the UK calls it “lemonade.”
petargyurov
1. Buy the ingredients listed on the back

2. Look up basic proportions & recipes for canned sodas online, just to get an idea about how much to use

3. Start experimenting, varying the ratios of each ingredient in each batch

Scoundreller
And look up the product labels in different countries because they may have to break down things in ways that other countries don’t. Hopefully the formulation is the same!
dhosek
Often they aren’t. The obvious one is sugar vs HFCS in Mexican vs American Coke.

Then, of course, there’s the big change from the original Coke recipe vs what we have today with cocaine being replaced by caffeine.¹

⸻

1. I’m pretty sure that in no country does Coke still use cocaine.

jkaplowitz
Regarding Coca-Cola and cocaine: you’re probably right about the psychoactive chemical cocaine, but Coca-Cola does actually still use a trace amount of coca leaf extract in Coca-Cola in (at least) the US.

How does this work legally? There is a (single) company that is licensed by the DEA to import coca, and they sell the non-psychoactive part to Coca-Cola. I think the psychoactive part goes toward DEA-approved research purposes, but I’m less sure about that.

Coca-Cola’s competitors do not receive or use coca through this process, only Coca-Cola.

Scoundreller
The psychoactive part still has (decreasing) medical uses and it goes to pharma: https://nationalpost.com/news/coca-colas-cocaine-connection-...

I suspect the flavouring component is so diluted nowadays that its kept because it's a valuable sideline having that import license, and adds to the mystique a bit.

jkaplowitz
Thanks for confirming those details and being more concise than me. I had originally written “research and/or pharmaceutical uses”, but I wasn’t sure enough to warrant the extra paragraph I was going to include to explain the pharmaceutical uses. :)
thorin
I heard about this years ago, but it seems very strange what you can get away with as a massive megacorp! When I was in Peru everyone chewed Coca leaves on the backpacker scene, and many of the locals, but no one ever offered me cocaine.
JohnFen
Being a huge, wealthy corporation certainly helps, but I think there's a touch of tradition there, too. That the soda was already a strong cultural presence before cocaine was made illegal probably helped them get "grandfathered" in.
cirrus3
uh huh... 99% of the flavor is going to come from "Natural flavors" which is never defined.
cirrus3
I'm fairly certain this is an AI-generated answer.
hooverd
Sucks for people who naturally write with ChatGPTs weirdly chipper cadence.
GlickWick
Until you realize "Natural Flavors" does all of the heavy lifting!
blackkat
What is the soda in question ?
tuckerpo
You could ship a sample out to get a liquid chromatography mass spectrometry analysis done.
Scoundreller
Then when it comes back with 4000 molecules as a result, figuring out which 2 spices are responsible for 3993 of those.
throwup238
A lab specializing in analyzing food will be able to help with that too.

Usually only a few aromatics will make up the bulk of the flavor and they’re well known molecules, especially if they’re synthetic.

aitchnyu
Does this mean all "secret" recipes have been useless IP protection for a long time?
throwup238
No, a mass spec can only give you a list of molecules, like a list of ingredients but after they’ve been cooked. It can’t give you the raw ingredients or the recipe.

Most soda is sugar water with a few well known synthetic flavors added so it’s easy to identify. Secret recipes like Coca Cola are far more complex to make without easy synthetic alternatives. Any recipe that caramelizes sugar, for example, is hard to reverse engineer.

nailer
Somebody should be able to build a Large language model of Molecules to ingredients.
snickerbockers
I wonder if you could use a centrifuge to separate the drink's ingredients into layers like nurses do with blood samples?
celegans25
That is unlikely to work. Centrifugal separation works when the fluid you're trying to separate is a suspension of either solids or multiple fluids that do not mix (such as oil or another fat and water). Blood is a suspension of several types of several things (red and white blood cells, platelets, minor amounts of other stuff) in plasma, so you can separate each of those components out with a centrifuge. Soda, unless it contains something like fruit pulp or dairy, is generally not a suspension and therefore will not be separated by a centrifuge
hooverd
What soda. Is it calpis?
ktallett
If it is Calpis, that is really easy to replicate, it is just yoghurt, sugar, and citric acid/lemon juice heated over a pan of boiling water. I regularly helped make a jug of this to have ready to dilute. It is as good as the store bought, and you can also make the dilution ratio to your strength. You can make it to replicate the thicker version that is occasionally sold.
ktallett
What is the soda? As many Japanese sodas have recipes online already. You don't need to go to the lengths of reverse engineering.
throwup238
First stop would be a mass spectrometry service to analyze it with an LCMS. If you can’t find one cheap enough, check your local universities for a professor or postdoc that might be willing to help - the issue is usually finding out who has the mass spec and getting some time on it.

If none of that is a possibility, try to find a certified sommelier, preferably a class where you can have a teacher and students taste test it. Their training involves learning to distinguish a bunch of aromatic compounds using an essential oil kit so they might be able to isolate some of the flavors.

If you really want to do it using just the stuff in your kitchen, you could order an aroma training kit and try it yourself. Otherwise, I’m afraid reverse engineering it yourself is really hard. There are over 2,600 flavoring food additives recognized by the EU, alone. The benefit of doing it with a trained sommelier is that they can help figure out substitutions even if they can’t identify the exact flavor.

langcss
> would love to be able to recreate at home as it isn't available stateside.

Why not just import it? Or is this for fun.

nitwit005
Check if someone has already done the work for you. It's fairly likely you can find instructions to make a similar drink. For example, try doing a search for "Japan melon soda".
numpad0
In case it was Green Dakara[1]:

> 果汁（ぶどう、レモン）、糖類（果糖、砂糖）、食塩、レモンエキス、シークワーサーエキス、うんしゅうみかんエキス、ゆずピール、ドライトマトエキス／香料、乳酸、塩化Ｋ、酸化防止剤（ビタミンＣ）

TL:

> Fruit juice(grape, lemon), sugars(fructose, sugar), table salt, lemon extract, C. depressa extract, C. unshiu extract, yuzu peel, dry tomato extract/flavoring, lactic acid, potassium chloride, antioxidant(vitamin C)

it's not always this detailed for Japanese beverages tbc - e.g. for that reportedly horrendous liquefied frisk[2]:

> GABA（国内製造）／炭酸、酸味料、香料、甘味料（アセスルファムＫ、スクラロース）

TL:

> GABA(domestic sourced)/carbonic acid, acidulant, flavoring, sweetener(acesulfame potassium, sucralose)

1: https://products.suntory.co.jp/d/4901777336704/

2: https://www.dydo.co.jp/products/detail/1148