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In the 1950s, coffee was the preferred beverage for breakfast, but it was often over-boiled, weak, and generally quite tasteless. Unless you had traveled to Europe, you didn’t know the difference, that’s what coffee was like. Those lucky enough to visit France or Italy had an “aha” moment when they first lifted a cappuccino or a cup of French roast to their lips, inhaled the aroma, and took their first sip. Zowie, this was not Maxwell House, of course. For the more adventurous, coffee presses and funnel carafes made a slight difference, but it wasn’t until the early 1970s that trends began to change and new milestones influenced the coffee world forever. The most memorable include:

Decaf – In its little orange packets of instant it was awful, as are most coffee substitutes, but once cans of pale brown ground coffee became available, Americans consumed it more easily and many restaurants started brewing it , sometime in the 1960s, although decaf was around for decades; Freeze dried was not much better;

Mr Coffee – Launched in 1972, when former Joltin ‘baseball legend Joe DiMaggio first smiled on television about the new Mr. Coffee, Americans were intrigued and soon flocked to stores, buying it in droves; Gone are forever the days of boiled and charred coffee; two years later, a staggering 5 million had been collected (roughly half of all coffee makers sold in that time period) and people threw away their coffee makers;

An influx of European drip coffee makers, such as Braun and Krupps, soon followed as the revolution began;

Although there were already a number of Starbucks coffee shops in Seattle in the early 1970s, they only sold beans and accessories, not actual coffee drinks and drip coffee to consume on the spot, but ten years later Howard Schultz, who had a business of imported coffee machines, saw the potential, bought the company and started serving freshly brewed hot on the spot, setting the entire industry on fire;

Once people were hooked on their first lattes and cappuccinos, they looked to buy espresso machines at home, although the former were a bit challenging for most and could explode at any moment; these days they are much easier to use;

Peet’s Coffee – Starting in 1966, a small coffee shop in Northern California, sold only beans in the early years and seemed content with just one local operation, only to see what they were missing and eventually joined the stampede, opening stores nationwide, serving coffee and coffee drinks, followed by Green Mountain, Caribou and Green Leaf Tea and Coffee;

Frappuccino drinks (inspired by Italian ice cream and slushies) were introduced and popularized by Starbuck’s in 1994;

In 2003, Keurig introduced a countertop kitchen machine that produced one cup at a time, ideal for home use and small offices;

These days, eighty percent of Americans drink coffee at home at some point in the day, with millions more stopping at newsstands, coffee shops, and convenience stores to get their fix. It’s available bottled and chilled, alongside soft drinks at supermarket checkout counters, and our beloved designer cold slushies and flavored concoctions can be made in our cafeteria of choice. Fortunately, the days of workplace coffee vending machines, tasteless instant substitutes, that fool no one are gone. We are finally a sophisticated society, probably seen by Western Europeans as being very late to the party but having arrived anyway.

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