New Jersey factory imports cocaine plant that flavors Coca-Cola thanks to DEA arrangement

Guess you really can’t beat the real thing.

Coca-Cola gets its iconic taste thanks in part to a chemical processing factory in a sleepy New Jersey neighborhood that has the country’s only license to import the plant used to make cocaine.

The Maywood-based facility, now managed by the Stepan Company, has been processing coca leaves for the soft-drink giant for more than a century and had its license to import them renewed by the Drug Enforcement Agency earlier this year.

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