As the foremost expert on Cola Quest it truly is a great surprise when I get thrown by a new entry, as what happened when I just found Campa Cola in Siliguri, West Bengal.
Yet and as I was to find this is far from a new cola, but more one that has not only seen a 2.0 renewal, but also frankly just refuses to die, much like Vita Cola of the former DDR. Here is the Campa Cola story.
What the Campa Cola? – The Early Years
Campa Cola was born in the late 1970s during India’s closed-market phase, when foreign companies like Coca-Cola were booted out of the country by a mixture of government red tape, nationalist sentiment and well some good old fashioned Indian style communism. In their absence, Pure Drinks Group stepped in and launched Campa Cola with full patriotic flair.
The branding was simple. Red script font. Tricolour patriotism. A slogan that literally said “The Great Indian Taste.” You knew what you were drinking and more importantly that it was great for the nation. It also came with ads featuring joyful children, 80s-style denim shirts, lots of wide-mouthed swigging and Bollywood chic before that was even a thang.
It wasn’t just cola either. They did campa orange, campa lemon, and some short-lived weirdos like campa jeera depending on the state. And it was bloody everywhere. Trains, weddings, roadside dhabas, and it came in a nostalgic glass bottle, oh what a time to have been alive.
The Decline of Campa Cola
Then came 1991. The USSR had fallen, India was broke, and the country threw open its economy. Liberalisation and with it came foreign companies and Coca-Cola slithered its way back in. They came not just to sell Coke, but to buy out the competition. They gobbled up Parle, which made thumbs up, limca, and gold spot to name but a few.
Thumbs up refused to die. Coke thought they could buy it and kill it off, but Indians just kept buying the spicy rocket fuel like it was bottled nationalism. Campa Cola wasn’t so lucky. It didn’t get bought out. It just sort of faded away, left behind by slicker marketing, colder supply chains, and the reality that nostalgia only gets you so far when you don’t have distribution.
By the early 2000s, it was gone from most major cities. You could sometimes find it in random Bihar or UP towns, but it had become a relic seemingly lost to the Cola gods. This was of course until like many places got nationalistic-nostalgic.
The Campa Cola Phoenix from the Flames
In 2022, Mukesh Ambani and his little Reliance empire decided to bring it back. Because of course they did. If there’s a way to squeeze profit from the 90s, Reliance will find it. They bought the rights, slapped the original design back on the bottle, and gave it a full reboot.
The new Campa Cola is available across Reliance supermarkets, JioMart, and increasingly in smaller shops across West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, and parts of Maharashtra. It’s cheaper than Pepsi and Coke, and is being marketed as a proudly Indian cost effective alternative to massive foreign corporate assholes. Instead you can fund local corporate dicks, you see the difference?
You can currently get:
– campa cola – the OG. Sweet, syrupy, low fizz, slight masala back-note
– campa orange – artificial as hell but nostalgic
– campa lemon – sort of like Sprite with sugar overload
– campa jeera – available in select cities. Spicy, fizzy cumin chaos
– campa apple – currently being tested in a few Reliance stores, actually better than it sounds
Pricing is India-style reasonable. A 250 ml bottle sets you back 30 Rupees, or about 50 cents USD. Glass bottles are apparently making a comeback too and it is more cola per Rupee than the big guns.
What Does Campa Cola score on #ColaQuest
So. The standard when you pick up a weird new cola by and large is that it is shit, particularly when you are in the third world. But I have to say Campa Cola threw me for a loop. I was looking for a drink prior to boarding the 26 hour Siliguri to New Delhi train when I saw a bog bottle being sold for 30 Rupees, or about 50 cents USD.
And while the morning element meant it was had straight rather than with booze it was extremely refreshing. Taste wise I would say it’s fairly sweet, has a ting of Indian spice to it and felt slightly less fizzy than Coca-Cola. I feel it would go well with local cheap rum, or whisky rather than vodka.
I personally give it a 7.5/10, slightly above respectable, but below thumbs up – the national cola of India, even after Coke tried to strangle it.
And I reckon it would make a great masala cola.