In Oaxaca, Mexico, A Locally Made Soda Takes Aim At Coca-Cola's Supremacy
In the sunny colonial city of Oaxaca, Mexico, diners at the upscale restaurant Los Danzantes might notice their fellow patrons drinking a brown, carbonated soda. It looks like Coca-Cola and it tastes — almost — like Coca-Cola. But Coca-Cola it is not.
It's a drink called Zega-Cola, an all-natural substitute to the ubiquitous soft drink. It's made in the nearby village Santa Ana Zegache, and these days, many Oaxacans are clamoring for it. Its creator, a carpenter named Antonio Ambrosio Salvador, sold more Zega-Cola last month than in his entire first year of production.
Mexico is notorious for its love of Coca-Cola and other sugar-sweetened soft drinks, which has been cited as a major factor behind The country's Coke consumption is actually going down, thanks to a soda tax implemented in 2014, but "decline" is relative in this case: In 2015, the World Economic Forum found that Mexico was still the second-highest per capita consumer of sugary drinks in the world.
