Coffee is something that many of us – especially those of us that are older – look forward to as soon as we wake up. We need it to get going in the morning. I actually get a headache when I don't drink it.
And a good cup of coffee at work is – sad to say – very often the high point of my day.
It's funny, but most of the young people that I work with don't even drink coffee; they favor energy drinks. And when they do drink coffee, black coffee is out of the question; they prefer iced coffee, with flavored syrup – yecch. Just the thing to warm you up on a cold winter day.
Anyway, seventy years ago, coffee was very often the subject of national ads found in the Lorain Journal.
Here's one for a coffee that I never knew existed: Borden's Instant Coffee. The ad ran in the Journal back on January 29, 1953.
I guess Elsie just wasn't satisfied producing the stuff that you add to coffee; she wanted a bigger piece of the action.
Here's a 1946 magazine ad for the product.
I don't buy into the premise that the guy in the ad usually made bad coffee before he discovered Borden's. In the Brady household, it was generally accepted that the male of the species made better coffee (stronger at least).
Here's another vintage ad. I'm not sure if the old gent is smiling because of the coffee's taste, or the way it's being served by his, er, maid (?) or whoever.
And here's a jar that somehow survived all these years.
I'm not a big fan of instant coffee. I tried it a few times out of sheer laziness (anything to get me out the door quicker in the morning), but I always came back to the regular kind.
Speaking of regular coffee, and getting out the door quickly, here's a vintage ad for the preferred coffee of my parents: Hills Brothers. It ran in the Journal on January 22, 1953.
The ad is somewhat amusing. The woman is crestfallen because her husband took it on the lam rather than 'take a second cup' of her obviously bad brew. But was he supposed to take a cup and saucer on the bus?
At least Hills Bros. provides a happy ending to the proceedings, although the man seems to be more interested in his coffee than his pretty, adoring wife.
6 comments:
Having coffee in my yeti travel mug as I read this Dan. I just get the cheaper brands (folgers, maxwell house, whatever is on sale) with a flavored creamer. Can't remember the last time I didn't have coffee in the morning. Agree, the old man in the ad seems a little too happy being served his coffee from the young lady (maid?, haha). Cheers to all the coffee drinkers!
Slurping down my first cup of the morning (,store brand instant; sue me,) from the skull insulated mug that I got for Christmas. I make real coffee for the Sunday School class.
Best coffee I ever had, brewed on the bank of the Vermilion, on a flat, hot rock over a campfire, made from filtered river water, flavored with wood smoke, sipped from a scorching hot metal canteen cup. (Starbucks THAT, ye yapping puppies...)
My family were Chase & Sanborn-ers from an old glass-topped percolator, though Mum did toy with Folger's Crystals from time to time.
Though, not me. If you added up all the coffee I've had in my entire life it wouldn't fill half a Styrofoam cup. I love the smell, but can't stand the taste. Coffee candy. Coffee ice cream. Yuck. It's all like burnt dirt to me.
In fact, when I was little, I wouldn't eat coffee cake because I thought it would taste like its name!
Grandpa, on the other hand, always said he'd died with a cup of coffee by his side -- and that's exactly what he did at 90+ years old!
Back when I drank coffee (no longer allowed in my diet), McDonald's (yes, McDonald's) was a favorite. I see lines of cars wound around Starbucks and marvel at the need to spend $5 for the fancy stuff. I don't get it.
My parents liked their coffee STRONG. When they would visit friends' houses for an evening of cards, the next day they would invariably complain about the weak stuff on offer along with the usual carping about bridge tactics.
"Why didn't he take a second cup?"Because he probably got kidney stones and he's laying on the floor in pain.....I never got into coffee.Ever since my father got kidney stones.He would drink coffee everyday at work religiously.So that cooked me on the coffee.
I did the kidney stone thing *without* any coffee.
For me, it was too much chocolate combined with not enough water.
I don't know how hard it is to give up coffee.
Giving up chocolate wasn't too bad. All I had to do was think about the kidney stones!
Excuse me while I drink more water...
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