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A dark, gently sparkling soft drink with an unmistakable bittersweet taste. Herbal tones blend with the fruity freshness of apples, cherries and currants, while a subtle caramel bitterness and a light hint of caffeine add depth. Best served ice-cold from the tap — the way every Czech and Slovak knows it.
14herbal and fruit ingredients
180million litres of annual production in 1970
215million CZK paid by the Samaras family for the recipe
It all started with a chimney in a coffee roasting plant. In 1959 the team of Associate Professor Zdeněk Blažek at the Czechoslovak Research Institute was given a task — find a use for the caffeine escaping in soot during roasting. They placed a special container in the chimney, captured the soot and chemically extracted the caffeine. From this the KOFO syrup was born — a mysterious blend of 14 herbal and fruit ingredients — and in 1960 Kofola appeared on shop shelves. In communist Czechoslovakia, where Western colas were unavailable or expensive, it became an instant hit. After the revolution the brand nearly disappeared in trademark lawsuits before the Greek Samaras family in Krnov rescued it and brought it back to life.
