I used to love drinking cola, and when I could it would be diet coke not pepsi, not a non-diet version, but diet coke from coca cola. However, for a couple of years when I first became caffeine intolerant I couldn't have it, so as you can imagine when they brought this in I sort of yelped for joy. It's been on the shelves for quite a lot of years now, and it's become clear now that they intend to leave it there (I always have a worry with caffeine free things that they'll decide they're not popular enough and remove them).

Caffeine free coca cola comes in 3 sizes as far as I can tell. The big 'family size' 2 litre bottles, the individual 500ml bottles and the 330ml cans. I normally buy the large 2 litre bottle as this works out the best value at £1.78 a bootle and as I don't generally need to carry it around with me outside the house this is fine. The can prices vary hugely from 60p a can for just one to 40p each if you buy a 12pk, and the 500ml individual bottles I've seen at widely ranging prices too, but in my local supermarket they're usually around £1.10 each.

The taste. If there's anyone out there who's not tasted cola in one form or another may I suggest that to understand what I'm describing you go and try some. I think this is one of those products that is never going to be very describable flavour-wise sadly. The drink is sweet, and is flavoured with the kola nut and coca leaves. The leaves have the cocaine extracted from them first so that they're considered 'spent' before they're used to flavour the coke. There are some people who believe that the process used can't remove all of the cocaine alkaloids so they think the drink still contains trace amounts at molecular level, but this is something which the Coca Cola Company say isn't so. Other flavours in there include cinamon and vanilla apparently, but Coca Cola keep the exact recipe a secret so that no other cola company can replicate it.

I have to say I've tried a few brands of alternative caffeine free cola (Tesco's own and Asda's own for example), and I just don't like them. Compared to Coca Cola's they taste wrong somehow.

I enjoy drinking caffeine free coke when it's a hot day and I want a cold refreshing drink. It's not something I'd want on a daily basis, and I have to say I generally prefer it in the summer to winter time. I don't tend to drink it in the pub as the caffeine free version is hardly ever available there which is a shame as I'd appreciate it if it was. I find this to be a very refreshing drink when it is drunk cold, being fizzy but also sweet it does I think require that coldness to work well otherwise it can be a little overly sweet tasting for me. This diet version does contain aspartame and other sweeteners which I know some people avoid, but I figure I'd rather have those than loads of sugar so I do prefer this version to the 'full fat' version as we call the non-diet one. I think to be honest though, this is purely a matter of taste.

Compared to some other fizzy drinks, this isn't cheap, however, compared to its arch rival pepsi it's pretty much the same pricewise. I also find that the price is no greater for the caffeine free version which is good, and it's often available on special offers like three for the price of two in Tesco. I tend to buy it when it's on one of these offers and keep a couple of bottles in the cupboard for when I want them. It's shelf life is exceedingly long (months and months), so I can do this without concern that it might go off.