Wood Staining: Coca Cola vs Coffee

In this experiment I’m trying out Coca Cola and coffee as a wood stain. I have seen in the past many people use coffee as a wood stain but never soda so I thought I’d try them both out and compare. I wanted to use these wood stains on real projects and not just scrap wood to show the results so I made 3 mitered corner boxes with splines out of red oak. I normally don’t use stain in my projects but when I have I’ve had the best luck with red oak as it seems to take stain well.

The coffee definitely stained the wood much more than the soda but had a slightly greenish tint to it. When compared to the other two boxes it seemed to have an unnatural color. The Coca Cola stain only slightly darkened the wood compared to the non-stained box but had the best results. The soda gave it a natural amber tint and was surprisingly not sticky at all once dried.

Would I stain a project again with soda or coffee? Probably not but I will experiment more with other products in the future. Maybe next time I’ll try motor oil and wine. Let me know in the comments down below what you’d like to see me experiment with in the future!