The fruit
What is guaraná, the fruit in Guaraná Antarctica?
A climbing plant from the Amazon, a red fruit that splits open on a black seed, and more caffeine in that seed than in coffee. Here is the plant behind the soda.
Guaraná is a plant before it is a soda. Its Latin name is Paullinia cupana, and it is a woody climber native to the Amazon, especially Brazil and Venezuela, and it bears its small round fruit in clusters.
A fruit that looks back at you
Ripe guaraná fruit is bright red. When it splits, it shows a black seed half wrapped in white flesh, so a cluster on the vine looks like a handful of eyes. The logo on every Guaraná Antarctica can shows the same thing: red fruit with the dark seed showing.
The seed is the part that matters. The University of Texas at El Paso puts its caffeine at 3.3 to 5.8 percent, several times what a coffee bean holds, and it carries a dry, slightly bitter taste with it. The same page lists where guaraná ends up: soft drinks, chewing gum and energy drinks.
From Maués to the can
The brand's product page for Brazil gives the origin of its guaraná as Maués, a town in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. The product description of the 2-liter bottle says the drink was launched in 1921, and calls it the first guaraná-flavored beverage.
In the drink itself, guaraná is a short line on a long list: guarana extract, third after carbonated water and sugar in the Original, second after carbonated water in Zero. It is there for flavor, and it brings its caffeine along.
What guaraná does to the taste
To us the soda tastes a little like apple and a little like cream soda. The difference is in the finish: the guaraná leaves a faint dry bitterness at the back of the mouth that keeps the drink from tasting only sweet. It is the same bitterness that makes the seed useful as a flavor, and it comes through more clearly in Zero, where no sugar sits in front of it.
| Pack | Where guarana extract sits on the list |
|---|---|
| Original cans | Third, after carbonated water and sugar |
| Zero Sugar cans | Second, after carbonated water |
| Original 2-liter bottles | Third, after carbonated water and sugar |
| Diet cans | No ingredient list given |
Guaraná the supplement is a different thing
Guaraná is also sold as powder, capsules and extract in health stores, and those products are labelled by their caffeine. A soda flavored with guaraná extract is not that: it is a soft drink, labelled as one. If you are looking at a guaraná supplement for its caffeine, the UTEP page lists who should ask a health professional first.
The soda in every can and bottle of the Guaraná Antarctica catalog carries the plant's name and some of its caffeine, and our caffeine guide sets out what the labels do and do not say about it.