Why does Sprite taste different when drunk from a can than it does from a soda fountain?

When you get a drink from a soda fountain, there are bags of syrup(Coke, Sprite, etc) and whatever kind of air makes it carbonated hooked into the back of it as well as a direct line to the local tap water. It's the tap water and how properly the machine is working (and how clean it is) that determines the variation of taste. The machine more or less mixes the three together. When you buy a can or bottle, it's already been mixed at a plant and it's bottled. Since different plants bottle millions of drinks to distribute in their area, they will all taste the same. Even bottled drinks taste a little different if you travel outside of the distribution area.  more