The Fake Coffee War of 1906
Scientific research conquers fake news while improving the taste of a cup of coffee
Drinking coffee is something I enjoy regardless of the time of day. When I confess my apparent vice, two reactions usually follow — the obligatory “doesn’t the caffeine bother you?” and the wistful “I wish I could drink regular coffee any time.” In some cases, I’ll sense just the slightest wisp of judgment, as in “I only drink one cup in the morning.”
If you drink more than one-cup of coffee a day as I have the majority of my life, you’ve definitely had a similar experience.
My passion for coffee was kindled during my youth as I enjoyed an occasional cup at home or during the rare visit to a local diner with my family. While an ample dose of cream and sugar hid the numerous imperfections of the brew (I was a coffee-brat snob), I was regularly warned by my aunts of coffee’s deleterious effects and how it would stunt my growth.
Oh, how I suffered under their cruel, one-cup limit! How could this even be legal? Coffee was our national drink, “king of the American breakfast table.” The sovereign elixir of the American people, infused into our cultural DNA by the Boston Tea Party of 1773! I surely should be entitled to more than one cup of coffee a day.
What I have since discovered is that this arbitrary and capricious limit was based on a marketing myth evangelized through an advertising campaign that declared a “war” that was, in fact, fake.
Since those early days of forced coffee rationing, creating and drinking a consistent and “perfect” cup of coffee at home has been a priority for me. Really, more of a borderline obsession, just ask my wife. If you don’t believe me, a recent discussion compelled me to take a deep dive into the source of the accepted standard water temperature for brewing hot coffee. This led to me researching this topic for the better part of a vacation week and a number of late evenings for almost a month.
Imagine my surprise, when, while satisfying that seemingly innocuous question about the proper water temperature for brewing coffee, I also stumbled upon a plausible explanation for the source of the one-cup coffee limit of my youth.
Getting into Hot Water
As my coffee understanding has developed, along with the expansion of coffee culture in the U.S., literature and product materials consistently recommend brewing fresh ground beans with hot water that’s just off the boil with a temperature range of 200°F ±5°F or 93°C ±3°C.
After picking up a Hario V60 ceramic coffee dripper years ago, I decided to up my game for home coffee brewing and adhere to the standard. Now when I brew with the Hario, the Porlex Mini Hand Grinder, digital scale, and my beloved ThermaPen (temperature range -49.9 to 299.9°C with an accuracy of ±0.4°C and a blazing fast 2–3 second response time) are regularly called into action. A need to test the impressive upper and lower limits of the ThermaPen has not occurred, but I am prepared and ready to meet a future challenge. My wife regularly reminds me that most coffee drinkers do not go through this much effort. But — once you know the proper method — how can you go back? This is coffee!
There are cold-brewing techniques, but my predominant method of preparation is hot brewing when I do not use my Saeco Exprelia super-automatic coffee machine (A compromise due to limited counter space — otherwise a Rancilio Silvia with a PID controller and a Rancilio Rocky grinder would be parked in my kitchen).
Throughout history, coffee brewing or, to be more precise, infusing, methods have evolved to use off-boiled water. In 1711, an infusion method that called for boiling water poured over a cloth bag filled with ground coffee was employed in France. Prior to that time, boiling water with ground coffee in it was the preferred method of preparation.
A nagging question urged me to determine the source of the water temperature standard for brewing hot coffee. But, more important, what provoked determining a standard in the first place? Can the convenience of attaining an off-boil water temperature be the source of the standard? What if the flavor improved at higher temperatures?
It is difficult enough to keep water at a steady boiling temperature at home, not to mention the inherent safety concerns at higher temperatures. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has even issued a warning about the dangers of super-heating water above the 212°F boiling point. As we often hear, this is not something to try at home.
The Caffeine Crusades
After some investigation, I determined that scientific evidence for the temperature standard exists. More interesting, a “war” between the coffee industry and the Postum Food Company founded by C.W. Post instigated the research study that created this evidence.
The coffee “war” was a part of a persistent, negative advertising campaign that Post and the Postum Food Company used during his “feisty crusade” to promote Postum Food Coffee substitute. Stretching from 1895 through at least 1951 — long after his death — Post’s goal was to convert coffee drinkers to imbibers of his newly-invented Postum Food coffee substitute.
The newspaper clipping above is an example of the slogan, “There’s a Reason”, that appeared throughout his campaigns against the dangers of caffeine. Post even invented an evil villain named Mr. Coffee Nerves, who was featured in one of the ad campaigns.
Post wrote most of his early advertising copy rather than relying on an agency. In fact, he is credited by some as the “grandfather of advertising” due to the strategies he deployed.
It is unclear if Post truly believed in the dangers of caffeine, but his national advertising campaign effectively flooded newspapers and magazines with that message. This was unheard of at the time. It also was the fake news of the time, with Postum ads appearing in newspapers across the country next to actual news reports of the day. To the casual reader, most of the advertisements would have been difficult to distinguish from facts.
However, there is a much older example of advertising that misrepresented coffee’s effects. The first known coffee ad to have this distinction was a handbill, also known as a dodger, distributed in London circa 1652 by Pasqua Rosée. Not surprisingly, Pasqua opened the first known coffee house in London.
Rosée claimed that, in addition to quickening the Spirit, coffee would
“very much stop any Defluxion of Rheums...prevent and help Confumnions and the Cough of the Lungs.
It is excellent to prevent and cure Dropsy, Gout, and Scurvy.
It is known by experience to be better then any other Drying Drink for People in years, or Children that have any running humors upon them, as the Kings Evil.”
And if that is not enough, it is a remedy against the Winds and
“it is observed in Turkey where it is generally drunk…that their Skins are exceedingly clear and white.”
I am glad my aunts allowed my occasional cup, but who knows what it would have done for me if I had been allowed to drink more than one cup? Think of all of the sick days from school that I wouldn’t have missed. And I really wonder what a reader 100 years from now will think of our current fake news that is much more serious than a hot beverage war.
Postum for the People!
Post brilliantly identified a strategic opportunity to eliminate reliance on the goods merchant — the corner grocer — to promote his product. The strategy is revealed in the following letter he wrote to a London merchant in 1896.
…Formerly, we depended somewhat on the ability of the merchant to whom we sold to favorably represent our goods . . . but at this time, if we rely on the old method, the business will fail . . . . We are compelled to address advertising to and place it before the consumer, who by his demand, compels the patronage of the dealer…
—C.W. Post (1896)
This was the basis of his disruptive marketing strategy. Highlight the dangers of caffeine and then position Postum as a safe coffee alternative directly to the consumer, thereby eliminating the influence of the middleman (i.e., goods merchants) to drive demand.
A Beaver to the Rescue
Due to the competitive pressure from Post’s “feisty crusade” spotlighting the apparent dangers of caffeine and a subsequent decline in the coffee market, a three-year research project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was sponsored by the National Coffee Roasters Association.
The water temperature range in use today is clearly linked to the research started in the spring of 1920. It was completed by an almost forgotten name in the history of coffee science, Dr. Samuel Cate Prescott of MIT’s Biology Department.
In Engineering the Perfect Cup of Coffee, Samuel Prescott and the Sanitary Vision at MIT — an engaging tale of these events published in 2004— University of Massachusetts historian Larry Owens describes the perceived need for scientific coffee research:
What the coffee men decided they needed was “coffee with a college education.”
Prescott’s research would enable the development of a growth strategy for the stagnating coffee market, and defend against the perception permeating the American public through Post’s successful marketing efforts that coffee is a “slow poison.”
Prescott received $40,000 from the National Coffee Roasters Association to conduct a three-year research project to “establish a new laboratory devoted to perfecting coffee” with broad yet lofty goals, designed for “the preparation of the infusion commonly known as beverage coffee.”
The ultimate purposes of the investigation were obviously (1) to add so far as possible to our knowledge of the chemistry and physiological action of this beverage, which has assumed a world-wide importance; (2) to be able to inform the housekeeper, the restaurant manager or any one who has to do with the serving of this beverage how best to prepare this medium so that it should be most acceptable in aroma and flavor.
— Samuel C. Prescott (1927)
Prescott’s Report of an Investigation of Coffee included the results of a review of almost 700 articles about coffee in the existing scientific literature. The majority of these papers were related to the effect of coffee and caffeine on the body and only 10 dealt with coffee preparation. Unfortunately, the paper does not provide a detailed list of the literature reviewed.
However, Prescott’s work was not the first U.S. scientific coffee study. The earliest research into roasting and brewing coffee with an off-boil water temperature was detailed in the Journal of the Franklin Institute in 1855. In Some Experiments upon Coffee as a Beverage, Augustus T. Dalson and Charles M. Wetherrill used a common biggin — you know, the one we all have sitting in our kitchen at the ready — to make a cup of coffee with a more “ethereal and delicate flavor.”
Science Trumps Puffing
Prescott’s final work was presented at the Joint Coffee Trade Publicity Committee meeting in Boston on October 17, 1923. In the graph below, the legend at the top indicates the coffee brewing water temperature tested in the research. It is clear that the tasters — “intelligent consumers” in Prescott’s usage — preferred coffee below the boiling point. The results revealed that, when coffee was at or above boiling, it was “looked upon with comparative disfavor.”
When I read Prescott’s final report, the first thing that struck me was the handwritten graphic and type, the lack of y-axis values, the overall humanness in the graph above — so many unanswered questions. How many coffee tasters? How many cups did they taste? What coffee did they taste? How was it ground? What size grind? Were there other temperature brewing ranges? Is this the result of one test or a summary of multiple taste tests?
The coffee industry had been building momentum in their counter-offensive to refute Post’s unsupported advertising claims. Prescott’s final report created the ammunition to finally respond to the “war” declared by Post over 20 years earlier. The news report headline says it all.
Coffee is a beverage which, properly prepared and rightly used, gives comfort and inspiration, augments mental and physical activities and may be regarded as the servant rather than destroyer of civilization.
— Samuel C. Prescott (1924)
The headline’s strong assertion that coffee is some sort of magical elixir does cause the skeptic in me — an informed coffee layman — to challenge the broad leap from the material in the report. After all, in the preface Prescott acknowledged the “vexed questions of the relation of the use of Coffee to general health and welfare,” and that he can only make general statements. He also expresses his frustrations with the existing scientific literature that is “exceedingly voluminous and not lacking in definiteness and accuracy of statement.”
Ultimately, Prescott’s conclusions on the safety and occasional risks of caffeine were confirmed via several independent clinical research studies through the years. One example is a recently completed multi-year study at Stanford University School of Medicine. The researchers “unearthed a connection between advancing age, systemic inflammation, cardiovascular disease and caffeine consumption” with a positive “correlation between caffeine consumption and longevity.”
That something many people drink — and actually like to drink — might have a direct benefit came as a surprise to us.
We didn’t give some of the mice coffee and the others decaf. What we’ve shown is a correlation between caffeine consumption and longevity. And we’ve shown more rigorously, in laboratory tests, a very plausible mechanism for why this might be so.
— Mark Davis, Stanford University School of Medicine (2017)
For even more evidence of coffee’s “resurgence”, consider that coffee is now included as a part of a healthy lifestyle in the U.S. 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines!
If you are a coffee drinker, three to five eight-ounce cups (400 mg caffeine) can be consumed every day without any major health issues, “since it is not associated with an increased risk of major chronic diseases (e.g., cancer) or premature death, especially from cardiovascular disease.”
I can almost hear the vindicated Prescott shouting gleefully…
Let’s toast these results with a triple-latte of “slow poison!”
Almost Pure (Water)
Prescott’s foundational work was continued through the efforts of Earl E. Lockhart in the 1950’s. Lockhart ultimately created the standards that define the perfect cup according to American tastes. His research concluded that, on average, people prefer a cup of coffee that is 1.25% ±0.1% flavor (i.e., soluble concentration). In other words,
That great cup of coffee we are drinking is 98.75% ±0.1% water.
Today, this concentration is promulgated through the coffee standards and protocols created by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA, formerly the SCAA) and included in their best brewing practices.
For brewing, the SCA sets a golden cup standard for the coffee-to-water ratio, water temperature, and the resulting total dissolved solids (i.e., coffee strength) after brewing. Water temperature is recommended to be in the range of 200°F ±5°F or 93°C ±3°C for the optimal extraction of solids through brewing. The temperature range, though not identical, is consistent with Prescott’s report.
Apparently we still don’t know enough about coffee. Recently the SCA announced the start of a two-year coffee brewing research project.
Recognizing the need to update this science, the Research Center of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is teaming up with the recently established University of California, Davis to embark on a 2-year project to re-evaluate the scientific assumptions, measurement tools, sensory information, and — most importantly — consumer research that forms the foundation of the coffee industry’s fundamental understanding of coffee brewing.
— SCA Press Release (April 20, 2017)
Back to the Dark Ages?
Surprisingly, given the improvement in coffee quality and ubiquity of chain and independent coffee shops, overall coffee consumption has dropped since the era of Post’s fake war.
Using the USDA’s Economic Research food availability data as a proxy for coffee consumption between 1910 and 2014, yearly U.S. coffee consumption decreased from a peak of 46.4 gallons in 1946 to 25.7 gallons per person in 2014. One cause for this drop has been attributed to the rise in non-coffee carbonated beverage consumption. I wonder if the current coffee consumption is actually slightly higher than what is being reported by the USDA due to the change in coffee product mix over the past 100 years. This could be due to the increased consumption of espresso shots and coffee capsules that would have a higher yield per pound of coffee.
Even more surprising is the dearth of specific brewing instructions on coffee roasters’ websites. I reviewed a sample of six sites and only found one roaster that provided clear guidance to use a temperature of 205°F. In one case, the roaster site had the audacity to provide instructions to only use hot water! We are clearly slipping back into the dark ages of coffee preparation. A closer review of this pathetic trend — with a larger sample size — will need to be looked at in the future.
C.W. Post(script)
Apparently, the dangers of caffeine had started to fade as an advertising meme by the time that the Postum Company acquired Maxwell House in 1928. According to a biography of Post’s daughter Marjorie by Nancy Rubin in American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post, purchasing Maxwell House bordered on sacrilege. According to Rubin
Marjorie Post recalled that this purchase nearly “finished her off” because she had been raised with the idea that drinking coffee was just like taking dope.
Marjorie couldn’t tell this to her father. Depressed by his declining health, C.W. had already died, committing suicide some 14 years earlier.
But Marjorie’s belief in the dangers of coffee faded quickly, apparently assuaged by the profitability of the new Maxwell House acquisition while the negative national advertising campaign played on.
Always in Hot Water
Fortunately, my elders indulged me, science prevailed, and coffee continues to improve. When I brew coffee at home, I always do my best to adhere to the water temperature standard using filtered water. This process, combined with fresh roasted beans and properly ground coffee, produces the perfect cup for me. Paying attention to these details does make a difference. It is really not that difficult— give it a chance in your home.
For my purposes, the origin of the recommended water temperature for brewing coffee has been answered while evoking fond, almost-forgotten memories. In early 1960, the Coffee Brewing Institute (CBI) created an informational video that gets right to the point using the classic advertising style of that era.
Three magic ingredients. Water, fresh and carefully measured. Coffee, properly ground and carefully measured. Time, carefully measured.
A simple recipe for perfect coffee. Perfect coffee, sending its glow around the clock.
— The Coffee Brewing Institute (1961)
If only my family had heard the sage advice given by the Coffee Brewing Institute. My coffee experiences would have started at a much more advanced and pleasurable state.
I have made up for lost time since then. I now regularly apply Prescott’s coffee science, avoid getting myself in really hot water (as best as I can), and exercise my sovereign right as a red-blooded American for more than one cup of delicious coffee a day.
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