The new Cup of Coffee. Is it real or just trendy?

By Peter, April 7, 2011 22:15

What happened to that old cup of coffee my mother could enjoy so very much? Just pouring hot water over a whole lot of coffee making the strongest coffee you could imagine. But it was served with the same volume of fresh cooked milk or water if you preferred black. No other choices were available at my mother’s “cafe”. Although she was more than 50% Italian she had never heard about cappuccino. She died almost 25 years ago, but would she make the coffee in a different way now? I don’t know. What I do know that Nespresso and Starbucks changed the coffee world completely. Coffee is not a normal drink anymore. It is an experience. It is being a part of a group. The real marketers have done their job really well. And nowadays we don’t even remember how it was before, it’s “normal” now.

Let’s start with Starbucks. You’re not visiting Starbucks just to drink a normal cup of coffee. You are there to have that Starbucks experience. And maybe not in de shop itself, but just to have a coffee to take away. You maybe want to sit in one of those really lousy chairs and surf the net and answer some mails using your computer and the available Wi-Fi. But first you have to make your choice from the Starbucks pallet of possibilities. Normal coffee – that is these days an espresso – is almost hard to find. Warm and cold drinks. Yes cold drinks. What about the Frappuccino® Blended Beverages or the Vivanno™ Smoothies. I wonder where the link with just normal coffee is. You can even find the nearest Starbuck cafe on your iPhone, because a special app has been made for that. One of the nicest things is all the merchandise Starbuck is selling, addressing the need to be part of the family. The mugs and cups are there with the normal logo’s but also painted with local attractions. In that way – when you travel a lot – you can build your special set of cups and mugs and showing your friends where in the world you have been. On top of that the paper cups are very popular amongst beggars to collect their gifts

Nespresso is a total different story. Although at this company the marketing costs spent are also very high. Building the brand took the company years, but it is getting more and more popular. The coffee of Nespresso is packed in little aluminium cups, you can put right away in a special coffee machine, knowing that every cup of coffee is really fresh. So it is not only the experience and the convenience but here it is also the quality of the coffee itself and the taste. Of course a lot of women are surely impressed by the words of George Clooney and the fact that even in heaven Nespresso coffee is drunk. But still Nespresso can’t be bought in the supermarket and that is also a part of the secret. Make your product hard to get and the need will be bigger. Buying the cups through their internet shop is really convenient, but buying it in one of their dedicated shops is even more fun and gives even more satisfaction for your euro (or dollar or whatever).

Of course there has been a lot of discussions around coffee about the social responsibility we have regarding the coffee farmers in third world countries. All the coffee brands publish on their web sites how they incorporate this issue in their business. I think that Starbucks is doing his best to be the most responsible. Not only taking the farmers into account, but also the environment as well. Nespresso is pitching on the recycling the aluminium cups.

But what we not must forget is that drinking coffee is not only being part of some sort of marketing experience, but that the caffeine in the coffee still has its effect on us. It makes us feeling better, less fatigue, helps with wake up or even helps us staying awake. The times when we had three types of coffee is over, but the feeling and effect of coffee will stay the same.

Print Friendly
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,
tell a friend
about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.

Comments are closed

Panorama Theme by Themocracy