Why Soda Tastes So Much Better in Glass Bottles?

Sometimes, a cool, bubbly, sweet glass of soda can be hard to resist. Whether it's a creamy root beer to beat the heat, a sip of Sprite while eating a greasy pizza, or a Coke with a burger and fries, that syrupy, fizzy taste can be hard to resist in certain situations.

If you're a soda connoisseur-or just indulge once in a while-you've probably noticed that the same brand of soda tends to taste different depending on whether you drink it from a can, plastic, or glass. So why does soda taste different if the ingredients are the same in all three cases? It turns out that a variety of factors are at play, from the lining of your soda can to the chemical makeup of your plastic bottle-and they can actually have a big impact on how much we like our soda.

According to food chemist Sara Risch, founder of food and packaging consulting firm Science by Design, while the recipe for soda remains the same, plastic, aluminum, or glass beverage packaging can affect the taste because the liquid reacts with the polymers in the packaging, she told Popular Science.

Glass beverage bottles are the most neutral soda containers. They don't contain any other chemicals besides the glass, and they also absorb carbon dioxide (the gas that causes soda to be carbonated) better than plastic bottles, and it doesn't taste like regular soda.

Not to give you too many high school chemistry flashbacks, but according to Popular Science, polymers are molecules inside packaging that add properties to the material they're made of. For example, aluminum cans are lined with polymers that absorb small amounts of flavor, and plastic bottles may alter acetaldehyde, which can change the taste of your drink. Glass is a more inert material than aluminum or plastic, so it's less likely to affect the taste of your drink. That's why drinking from a glass bottle may be the best way to get the authentic taste of Coca-Cola.