In the middle of last year Coca Cola made an attempt, albeit brief, to introduce carbonated milk to the wider world. The product, named Vio was launched in New York, and while it still appears to be on sale, it has not spread any further. There are only two similar carbonated dairy beverages that come to mind.

Firstly, Calpis Soda - a Japanese drink which tastes a little like thin yogurt that has been run through a soda siphon. Despite it's unappetising name and premise, it has a good following in Japan. I also find it endearing that alongside the soda on their website, Calpis advertise an agricultural feed additive that hints of "positive effects on productivity, such as improved feed efficiency and an increased body weight". There is no hiding that this is an industrial product.

Secondly, the Spider , a scoop of icecream dropped into your soft drink (or beer) of choice. It is however, much lighter on the dairy than on the Japanese soft drink and popular (or at least, known) around the world.

Carbonated milk sounds like a bad idea. In fact, it is difficult to think of carbonated flavours that would be worse; perhaps a carbonated meat drink.

Maybe carbonated soup.

Thankfully, the seals have rotted from my soda siphon so I couldn't test how running minestrone through it would turn out but the vision of me getting soup stuck to the roof comes to mind.

In the Journal of Dairy Sciences, Lederer, Bodyfelt and McDaniel investigated the exact  effects of levels of carbonation on various flavoured milks (Raspberry, strawberry, peach and root beer flavours). In their testing, levels of carbonation had a large impact on the way that milk tastes. Carbonation "significantly enhanced sourness and astringency at the high carbonation level. Chalkiness and bitter were rated significantly higher...".

In milk, none of these qualities are a positive. The perception of sweetness also declined for all of the milks at higher carbonation except for the root beer flavour. At least since humans discovered naturally carbonated natural mineral water or possibly, beer, carbonated tastes could be a positive. Bubbles are the point of Champagne. Without them most soft drinks are an inedible syrup.

But was the carbonation a taste in itself? or was the way that the bubbles feel in your mouth just changing the perception of other flavours?

Until last year, it wasn't known why these effects occurred. But in October (a few short months after the release of Vio on unsuspecting Americans), Science published a paper that established that Carbonation itself is tasted by the tongue - the same receptors that taste sourness also detect carbonation - but as the perception of carbonated milk shows, the taste of carbonation is not sour alone.