The Twice-Failed Coca-Cola Flavor No One Misses At All

If you've ever visited the international section of a grocery store, or are lucky enough to live near a giant World of Coca-Cola store, you'll notice that the selection of fizzy flavors spans a mile long. Cherry and Orange Cream are just a few of the tamer options, but there are even some limited edition flavors like OREO and Holiday Creamy Vanilla. Sometimes, Coca-Cola's outside-of-the-box flavors aren't such a hit. That was the case with Coca-Cola Blāk, a flavor that was released not once, but twice, and failed to be a hit both times.

Coca-Cola Blāk combined the classic taste of Coca-Cola with the flavors (and caffeine) of a cup of coffee. After initial testing in France, the product was released to the United States in 2006, an idea meant to appeal to the novelty of the beverage market at the time, with a name that fit the minimalist trend of the era. Even though several other unique Coke flavors from around the world might have been a hit in the U.S., Coca-Cola Blāk absolutely bombed with consumers and was pulled from shelves just two years after launching. Coca-Cola tried a coffee-combined soda again in 2021 with the launch of Coca-Cola with Coffee, which contained more caffeine than the original version and proved a hit in multiple foreign countries — but, yet again, U.S. consumers didn't buy into the hype and the product was pulled from shelves by the end of 2022.

When Coca-Cola Blāk launched in 2006, energy drink sales were skyrocketing, and the coffee market was just coming to life. Beyond the fact that this was Coca-Cola's first attempt at combining its soda with coffee, it was also a unique approach at packaging, featuring four sleek-looking, 8-ounce bottles per pack in the U.S. That very packaging, and the unusually high price tag that accompanied it, were part of the reason that the drink failed the first time around. Additionally, customers just weren't partial to the taste. The second time around, Coca-Cola with Coffee came in an aluminum can, when the coffee market was booming, but unlike the discontinued fruity version of Coca-Cola that fans still want back, U.S. consumers didn't care for the new bottle or new taste at all.

According to some customers who tried the original version of Coca-Cola Blāk, the drink was artificial-tasting and left a bad mouthfeel. "I made the horrible mistake of buying a bottle of Coca-Cola Blāk," one customer said on Reddit, continuing that "it was an awful experience." Another Redditor agreed that they remember the OG drink tasting "pretty nasty," while this Reddit user recalled that the soda "smelled like rotten milk." When it comes to Coca-Cola with Coffee, one Redditor admitted that the beverage "did a better job of balancing out sweet and bitter flavors" than its predecessor. But at the end of the day, the fizzy drink still earned a spot on our list of 11 discontinued sodas that don't deserve a comeback.