Where, oh, where Has Juan Gone?

Written by Lori Thiessen

I was watching MadMen, the new hip show to watch, on Saturday and part of the episode included the Draper and the ad dudes making a pitch to a coffee company wanting to make younger consumers into coffee drinkers like their parents. It was all music, no images and just had this tropical beat with the company’s name softly sung in the lyrics. The CEO of the coffee company asked if it was a jingle. Yes, sir. It is. It’s a new kind of soft persuasion because the younger generation didn’t want to be told by Madison Avenue what we were supposed to like. (Even though the show is set in the ‘60’s, that statement sounds familiar, doesn’t it, kids?)

It’s fun watching this show partly because of an imagined sense of history and nostalgia it evokes, but it also provides a glimpse, completely factual or not, into the development of advertising during its heyday.

Coffee ads I remember from yesteryear started springing up while I watched Don Draper et al work their magic—Nabob coffee (only the finest beans), Maxwell House (Wake up with Maxwell House in your cup), Folgers (good to the last drop) and characters associated with coffee like Juan Valdez for the Columbian Coffee Bean Growers and Robert Young (“Dr. Marcus Welby”) for Sanka, decaffeinated coffee.

With the remote control handy, I don’t generally sit through commercials. But what commercials I have seen, I have noticed that there aren’t as many coffee commercials around as there used to be. Are there?

If it is true that there are fewer coffee commercials around, I wonder why. Are coffee bean sales going that well?

I do notice commercials for coffee-style flavourings. You know, those instance powder things that are supposed to be like cappuccino or French vanilla coffee, but are more like coffee-flavoured Tang. Yeah, yuck.

Coffee-Mate seems to be making a stab at getting back in the coffee cupboard too. There is a new commercial with a young, hip couple having a lazy morning together. The hubby pours milk into what seems like his coffee mug, but hey presto, it’s his cereal bowl instead. He brings out the Coffee-Mate for his coffee which his wife then steals from him. Ah, can’t beat petroleum based products for that special pick me up in the morning.

I think I’ll do a little research on this because it’s bugging me now that coffee commercials are on the decline and get back to you with the results.

Q: What are your thoughts on coffee commercials (historical or contemporary)?

Until Next Time,

May Your Coffee Always Be Freshly Brewed!

What’s That Smell?

Written by Lori Thiessen

When coffee was first introduced to English consumers in the 17^th century, one of the first reactions was to the scent of coffee. It must be an evil thing with such a vile smell, was one of the comments.

Many people however have a different reaction to the smell of freshly ground beans or freshly brewed coffee. They love it! I must confess that I like the smell of some types of coffee brewing in the morning. There is something wonderfully inviting about the aroma – an invitation to the day perhaps.

In this month’s Shared Vision Magazine, there is a short blurb about a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry about the benefits of coffee.

We all know that coffee, or rather caffeine is a great temporary energy booster, but this recent study shows that even the smell of brewing coffee can get your brain cells bouncing.

Rats were given coffee to sniff and there were changes in the rats’ brains linked to increased antioxidant activity and reduction of the ill-effects of sleep deprivation.

So instead of saying yes to that late night cup of coffee, just give the cup a good whiff and pass it on!

Q: Do you have trouble going to sleep after having that after dinner coffee?

Until Next Time,

May your coffee always be freshly brewed!

Just a Cup of Coffee?

Written by Lori Thiessen

Coffee is ubiquitous these days. On every street corner there is a café. In the grocery stores, there are rows upon rows of roasted coffee beans to be taken home and enjoyed. But there is a price to pay for our favourite and most accessible addiction.

The environmental toll that coffee takes from cultivation, to production, to consumption and post consumption is staggering, considering the amounts of coffee being demanded on the markets these days.

Dean Cycon wrote an interesting piece “Will Coffee Be a Casualty of Climate Change?” in which he discusses how global warming will eventually make coffee farming impossible in countries whose economies depend heavily on revenue generated from this crop like Columbia.

It seems highly ironic to me that the millions of coffee cups we throw away each year and leave to rot in landfills contributes to global warming which will eventually destroy most coffee growing regions. Mother Nature does have a sense of humour.

Beyond the crisis of farming in a time of global warming is the post-consumer burden on the environment created by coffee cups. In Toronto, city planners want to drastically reduce the amount of garbage heading to the landfill by 2010. One of their targets is coffee cups. Moira Welsh reports in the October 6^th edition of the Toronto Star (“Coffee cup revolution urged”) that coffee companies will be required to have a self-managed disposal program in place in the near future.

Clarissa Morawski, a waste expert, suggests that coffee cups could have a deposit put on them like pop bottles. It would certainly encourage people to bring them back if it meant getting some money back. Or another scheme would be for coffee companies to offer a discount for people who bring in their own mugs.

So what’s the answer? Give up your daily cup or cups of coffee? My dad always advised moderation in everything, and I think it’s good advice. So I would suggest cutting down on the amount of coffee you drink, bring your own mug to the coffee shop, buy fair trade and perhaps buy your friends a travel mug for them to take with them to their cafes.

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Q: Do you bring your own mug with you to the coffee shop? If not, why not?

Thanks for stopping by and I’ll save your seat until next time.