Café olé?

I don't like coffee...which is strange when you realize that both my mother and father predominantly drank it all the time. In fact, I don't ever remember my mother drinking anything but coffee. So, in my case, the apple...or the bean, as it were...fell far from the bush.

I know people who drink coffee...I know people who drink a lot of it...and I know people who seem to only drink it to be seen...you know the types, the "I'm toddling off to Starbucks to get a Mochalochafrappalino" ones. Okay, fine, you DO that. I'll save $5.50 and have a glass of wine or something instead...and you can bet it won't have some frou-frou name neither.

Now I'm not saying that I've never drank coffee...but I'm rather in the "on" mode every waking second, so I am one of those people who doesn't need a jolt of caffeine in the morning...and I certainly don't need one anytime in the evening...so when I drink coffee, I "cheat" and drink the decaffeinated kind. Oh, sure...I have the ritzy coffeemaker to make it in and everything...hey, if I'm NOT going to drink a product, I'm darn well not going to drink it in style. So, I researched on Coffeegeek.com and found myself a "lovely to look at, lovely to drink from", elitist coffeemaker. Personally, I've used it about three times. But back to morning jolts and I don't mean people who live next to the San Andreas Fault Line...I'm talking java, black gold, cup of Joe, morning brewski...whatever you want to call it.

Well, there are a myriad of ways to get that coffee fix into your body during the day or nite without actually having to wait in line or brew some up yourself...there's all sorts of coffee-flavoured candies, ice-creams...there's coffee-flavoured tea for heaven's sake. And there's coffee-flavoured liqueurs...Kahlua which manages to get more sugar content in it than pure cane sugar comes with naturally...and then the Starbucks coffee-flavoured liqueur...which tastes much stronger in the coffee department, so chances are I'll never buy another. And I'm sure there are tons of other coffee-flavoured things...even chips and coffee-flavoured breads...and if they aren't out there yet...wait...they will be.

But for now, there's a new one on the block...or should I say BLOK? Coke has decided to get into the "Jolt Cola" type of marketing strategy...only adding a taste of coffee to their concoction besides the extra caffeine and sugar. Hmmmm...

My friend wrote me of his run-in with this new Coke at a sampling station in New York City just this past week. I commented to him that his description of the event sounded very much like what I try to convey in my blogs...so he said that I could "appropriate that theme" into my blog if I so needed an idea. I took "appropriate" to mean "feel free to say what I just said and put it in your blog"...as you can well deduce, I grant myself a lot of leeway...so, here's an actual comment penned not only by my "screenplay co-writer"...but someone who actually loves coffee (and the ensuing side-effects thereof I think)...

A few days ago, there were some young people on 7th Avenue handing out free
samples of "Coca-Cola BLAK," which is "Coke with coffee essence," at 8:00 in the
morning (yawn!), so I stopped and said to one of them, "Can I just look at it,
and if I don't like it, give it back to you?" He said, "Sure," and handed
me one. Then he said, "You'll give it back to me." I read the
ingredients list, and of course it's pure Coke with "coffee essence" as the
fifth or sixth ingredient, so I went "ew" out loud and handed it back to
him. He took it and said, "Told you so."

I guess "BLAK" is supposed to be a cutesy marketing way of spelling
"black," as in "I take my coffee . . . ," but in my case it was more a spelling
of the sound I made when I thought about someone putting all that sugar and
caffeine into himself!

I am not a health-food Nazi, as you know, but it does seem as though at
some point you could just inject amphetamines directly into your carotid artery
and get the same results.

So, they couldn't even give the stuff away at 8:00 a.m. to people on a busy New York City street...to people who actually LIKE coffee...what does that tell you?? Will Coke BLAK be destined to run the same course as New Coke, Vanilla Coke, and all those other Cokes that seem to appeal to 2% of the population? And why didn't they call it Mocha Coke? That would have seemed so much better than BLAK. Will we see some really bad commercial on TV with a guy on his way to work, eyes falling shut...and a voiceover from above saying "Don't black out on your way to work...BLAK out instead!" Oh...it might happen...I've seen those Snickers commercials...and you'd think NOTHING could get worse than those...well, okay, this isn't worse than those...but given the "proper" ad agency...who knows.