October 16, 1968
Rejoice all you bleary eyed coffee addicts; throw the percolator away now that freeze-dried coffee is here.
The 1960′s were the high water mark of the better eating through science era. Tang, Space Food Sticks, Spam, if it wasn’t processed it wasn’t food.
Maxwell House bought a full-page advertisement in the T-T to announce to the world their breakthrough techno food. All you need is a hotplate and a coffee cup to make coffee. A spoon was optional, journalists could use their metal pica rulers. (Microwave ovens would not come into common usage for at least a decade.)
The copywriter for the ad loved hyperbole, underlines and an italic font for emphasis. Here are the first few lines in all their breathless goodness.
Maxwell House® Announces
Freeze-Dried
Coffee
Now, an entirely new process called freeze-drying actually makes it possible for you to brew real percolated coffee…without a percolator!
Maxim® is an entirely new form of coffee.
Maxim is crystals of real percolated coffee. Concentrated crystals with the power to turn every cup in your house into a percolator!
The ad outlines the science for several paragraphs. Today is an era where science is often under attack. I can’t remember the last non-medical/non-chemical company ad campaign that featured someone in a lab coat working to make my life better. Even the oil companies now use pictures of wildflowers, children playing and windmills to sell the chemicals we pump into our cars.
My favorite lines are in the next to last section.
The real miracle happens in your cup. The moment you add hot water Maxim’s concentrated crystals explode into real percolated coffee.
Maxim actually turns every cup in your house into a percolator! No pots. No grounds. No instant taste!
Every cup is now a percolator? Even my plastic ducky cup? Doesn’t everyone want to witness an exploding miracle to start the day off? Does the economic bail out package include something for percolator makers?
I guess all this opinionating cost me the Maxim sponsorship.
Today trends pour the other way; coffee houses on every corner offer fresh drip and the brands of fresh ground coffee outnumber the freeze-dried varieties on the shelf.
Time to walk across the street and get a real cup of coffee.
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Ugh. To think that people sprinted out to buy instant coffee, drink powders and tinned meat with the misconception that it was somehow better than good, old-fashioned food. Obviously, we’ve seen the error of our ways.
Another good reason I never could get to liking coffee
Heyyyyyy, SPAM is a WWII concoction, not from the 60′s!
Don’t know how I missed that….
Good catch SSG David.
Further research reveals Spam was one of the first test tube foods with the trademark being registered in 1937. The trick was the salt/heat recipe otherwise the water would separate and the product would end up as dry meat in a can.
This Maxim Instant Coffee used to be available in the supermarkets in Saudi Arabia.
Now, I can no longer find them on the shelves.
Is Maxwell House still producing them? Are they still available any place on earth?
NO unfortunately they stopped making Maxim freeze dried coffee several years ago. I wish I could find where I could buy some left over stock I would buy it all up. It is such a great coffee. Skip
Still available in asian supermarkets in northern california. Yummy morning cup of poison.
This was great coffee! Were can you buy it today?
They still make it in korea and japan. I found some being sold on ebay and here:
http://www.japanesegreenteashops.com/coffeeselectioninstant.html
I used to drink it all through the 70s and 80s, the only halfway decent instant coffee I ever had