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Comment by Mediterraneo10 | Hacker News Reader

Always funny to read accounts of Red Bull's history which mention that people hate the taste. I recently overcame a 20-year daily addiction to Red Bull (thanks COVID, I guess – only a forced 2-week quarantine keeping me away from the shop worked) and my dependence was based on its taste. It couldn't have been the ingredients, because similar energy drinks just didn’t do it for me. At a certain point I was wishing that all food tasted like Red Bull, and that’s when I decided that my consumption might be a problem.

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Here I thought I was alone in this opinion. I’ve often wished for a caffeine free version of Red Bull so I could drink more without jitters. It is fascinating how divisive that flavor is.

Have you tried cape gooseberries (Physalis peruviana)? IMO they taste very similar to sugar free Red Bull.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalis_peruviana

NileRed has a video where he takes the caffeine out of Red Bull (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY8tz1paj6o), though it's unfortunately not super practical :/

Concurred. Would love the flavor in a clean seltzer.

Same on the taste, although I prefer the sugar free Red Bull. The regular is too sweet. Other energy drinks taste too medicinal to me, and tbh I don't need 24 ounces or however much those giant cans contain. The standard small Red Bull is like the perfect amount of liquid.

I also stopped drinking red bull not long ago because it would mess with my sleep cycle. I would not be tired late at night and stay up way too late. Then I would not get enough sleep and start the viscious cirle to drink more red bull.

I decided to stop when I my heart started racing randomly (im closer to 30 than 40) sometimes so I visited the doctor and they basically told me to stop drinking energy drinks and sleep more.

I have tried before to lower the amount but if I drink energy drinks I always end up in that bad circle. That said I love red bull. I love the taste, how clear my head gets whenever I drink it etc but I cannot drink it anymore because it is very harmful for my health.

I'm in the same boat, although I preferred Monster drinks. They were the most effective (legal) productivity booster that I've yet to find, but eventually I needed 5 just to get through the day and started to notice a lot of side effects to be health, in terms of sleep quality and my stomach.

Sadly, I don't do moderation well, so it's on my list of things I used to love but can no longer tolerate. Right up there with cola, sugar, tobacco, and alcohol.

Yeah I agree. For some reason, Red Bull is just better than other energy drinks. The other ones taste “cheap”

It's because of the secret ingredient of Red Bull - https://youtu.be/JbBQqMC0Htw

The acidity of Red Bull is also very bad for teeth.

YMMV, I guess. Red Bull always tasted like liquid SweeTarts, to me.

Now I'm happy to never have tried it!

Would never spend $2+ for a drink that costs about $0.09 to manufacture.

> Would never spend $2+ for a drink that costs about $0.09 to manufacture.

Sadly, adhering to this rule would prevent buying coffee and beer -- two things I'm looking forward to as the world re-opens :)

It would also prevent one from buying plain Coca-Cola or other soft drinks in certain countries. One of the odd things about the history of pricing in the Nordic countries is that the price of ordinary soda has climbed to that of Red Bull, while the price of Red Bull itself has stayed about the same.

In the USA, I can buy 67oz of Coca Cola for $1.

8.4oz of Red Bull is about $2.

1.4 cents per ounce vs 47 cents per ounce!

Coffee seems far more expensive than this to produce, especially for good/specialty coffee.

lets not get started about bottled water...

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