why is sugarcane juice more popular in third world countries than in first world countries?
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Sugar beet is grown locally, meaning culturally in Europe and so on there isn’t a history of sugar cane use in food and drinks. Likewise to protect local farming, sugar beet has import duty protections applied in the way of duties added on sugar cane.
Additionally, sugar currently has a low image consideration compared to fruit, for example. Although both contain sugars, fruit is more expensive and marketable. Sugar is seen as something cheap that people generally want less of, and the idea of a drink made with sugar cane as something being marketable as a high value product is alien to the western mindset.
It is very sweet (undiluted) and has a slight grassy herbal flavor (almost indistinguishable once it is diluted). Other than that it lacks any acidity. So it can just be overpoweringly sweet with no appreciable flavor or smell. This makes it somewhat easy to drink and an excellent source of sugar once the water is removed since there is almost no residual flavor.
Sugar cane grows well in fairly hot weather and is somewhat less productive the cooler it gets. The plant does NOT tolerate cold weather – so any frost would likely kill or severely reduce yield. Since it takes about 2 years to mature, this means growing it in temperate climates with the risk of freezing in winters a bit problematic.
Given the cost of transporting liquid and its relative lack of flavor, sugarcane “juice” is probably not going to spread much beyond the areas it is grown in. Even in many third world countries, fruit juices are likely to be a more popular option over sugar cane (unless you grew up 50 years ago)
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