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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

I was going to say. Americans have a sweet tooth but Brazilians are the world champions of adding sugar.

Only place I've ever been where it's considered perfectly normal to add sugar to your orange juice in the morning.

Guaraná is definitely just as sweet as American sodas. I personally find it too sweet because it doesn't have as much acid balancing it that Coke does.

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Brazilian here and I can confirm. We do have a sweet tooth. Guaraná tastes just as sweet as coke, everyone drinks it and loves it. But coke is also a massive success, Brazilians love it even more than guarana.

Our beloved brigadeiros are easy to make at home. But Americans often find it too sweet to bear. While it's actually the most delicious treat in the world.

Brazilians will only add sugar to bad orange juice (it's a clear signal that they think it's bad). Did you get it in a foreigner-focused hotel?

But yes our sodas have the same amount of sugar as the US ones.

Yes, drinking sour or acid juice makes no sense, unless a person will not take sugar because of health issues or is on a strict diet. In the same sense, drinking coffee without sweetening is a bit silly and a punch to the stomach, and provides no benefit, just a macho bragging feeling.

Most of Asia also adds sugar to orange juice as the raw juice taste is often bitter.

I'm curious, where? I've never been to any part of Asia where drinking orange juice was common.

Other than Tropicana which is available most “orange juice” is Asia is more similar to Sunny Delight —which is not my glass of orange juice.

Presumably OP means freshly squeezed orange juice, which might taste a bit sour. I cannot imagine adding sugar to some sugar-flavored orange water like Sunny Delight. Or maybe it is that bad.

I don't know about the oranges in Asia, but in Brazil they are not bitter at all. And people only put sugar in it when they are bad/old, and even then it's uncommon.

My grandmother is Brazilian. She used to add sugar to my instant chocolate milk.

I don't get it. In my family we only ever add sugar to lemonades and coffee. I don't see other people overusing sugar either. Maybe I'm just not observant enough.

Guaraná is just as sweet as Coca-Cola. No difference there, they both have about 20 g of sugar per can.

It's a cost cutting measure. If you're in a family that can't afford to buy enough oranges to squeeze enough pure juice for everybody, you just buy fewer oranges, dilute the juice with water, and then add cheap sugar to partially counterbalance taste loss due to dilution.

I never thought of it that way -- that makes a lot of sense, thanks.

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