Steff Cola

Finding much of a story behind Steff Cola is surprisingly difficult. The French cola has been around for more than three decades, but appears to have left relatively few traces beyond old product listings, official records and occasional nostalgic mentions online.

The Steff trademark was registered in December 1991, and by late 1994 Steff Cola was established enough to appear by name in a French survey of cola brands. This places its introduction somewhere in the early 1990s, although the exact launch date remains elusive.

Steff is associated with Compagnie Générale d’Eaux de Source (CGES), based in Saint-Yorre in central France. Steff has not been limited to cola: lemonade and other soft drink flavors have also been sold under the name.

There is little evidence that Steff Cola ever generated much attention of its own. Curiously, some of the traces it has left online are nostalgic ones. In French discussions on Reddit and X about growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, Steff occasionally resurfaces among remembered drinks and supermarket products. The memories are not particularly flattering: several people remember it as cheap cola, and the recurring verdict is that it did not taste very good. That is anecdotal rather than a reliable assessment of the drink itself, but it does suggest that Steff earned at least a modest place in some French childhood memories.

More than three decades after its first documented appearance, Steff Cola is still around. It is currently sold in 1.5-liter PET bottles. The present sugar-free recipe uses cyclamate, aspartame, saccharin and acesulfame K. Steff lemonade is also still available, while other Steff soft drink flavors have appeared through some distributors.

For a cola that seems to have made remarkably few waves, simply surviving from the early 1990s into the 2020s may be the most notable part of the Steff Cola story.