I watched the “Clash of the Coffee” episode of one of my all-time favorite shows The Food That Built America. It detailed how the rivalry between Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks shaped our modern coffee culture. Back in the 1950s, coffee was known simply as an energy drink for worn out adults—kids did not drink coffee in the 50s. Nowadays, however, every teenager is sipping on an iced-caramel-macchiato. What changed?
How coffee was served in the 1950s
In the 50s, everyone purchased vacuum-sealed cans of ground coffee from brands like Maxwell House, Sanka, Chock Full o’Nuts, and Folgers. They used either a traditional stovetop percolator or an electric percolator, or an electric drip coffee maker. Some of the more fancy folks used a French press (which is my personal favorite). Also popular was instant coffee; the kind where you stir a spoonful or two into boiling hot water until it dissolves.
In the morning, a woman would usually prepare a pot of coffee, then chat over breakfast with her husband and kids before he left for work and they went to school. Generally speaking, kids in the 50s did not drink any coffee, they just had milk or fruit juice. But, some parents allowed their older kids to have a cup of mostly-milked-down coffee, to make them feel included. Teenagers just didn’t go for coffee since it wasn’t appealing or “cool” to them.
In the 50s, a ‘regular’ coffee meant milk plus sugar. A few people liked it black, but the quality of packaged coffee after WWII was really poor. Thus, the default option always had milk and sugar to make the flavor less unbearable.
Once alone in the house, a woman would sip a few cups throughout the day when resting between housework, cooking, grocery shopping and cleaning. (Although all that caffeine may sound concerning, coffee drinking has health benefits specific to women). Men chugged several paper cups of coffee throughout the day at work. The office breakroom wasn’t complete without an electric drip coffee maker or a vending machine that dispensed a small paper cup of coffee.
More blue collared factory workers, also, drank it just to make it through long shifts. These guys often went to countertop diners where waitresses would just keep filling their glass cups. To-go coffee wasn’t really popular until the 60s and 70s. Most people either drank coffee at home, or at the diner.
Starbucks Changes Coffee Culture with the Frappuccino in the 90s
In the 50s through 80s, teenagers did not drink coffee because to them, coffee was a drink for older people to make it through the day. Anyways, the longstanding myth that coffee stunts growth kept most parents from allowing their kids to drink the elixir (unless extremely diluted with milk, on special occasions)1. This all changed in the 90s when Starbucks introduced the Frappuccino, a deliciously sweet coffee slushy. This innovative and trendy drink had just enough coffee flavor to get kids hooked from a young age.
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/its-a-myth-theres-no-evidence-that-coffee-stunts-kids-growth-180948068/ ↩︎