Post by Souriquois on Nov 18, 2017 0:36:36 GMT -4
The Nazis invented it...
www.atlasobscura.com/articles/decaf-coffee-nazi-party
Seriously, a sure way to get yourself murdered, would be to offer me a cup of coffee in the morning, and give me decaf. Just no. No no no no no.
Why the Nazi Party Loved Decaf Coffee
The Third Reich pushed decaffeinated drinks as official state policy.
THE MODERN VERSION OF YOUR morning coffee first appeared in the 15th century, and it replaced caffeine fixes that ranged from weak, coffee-bean tea to coffee beans mixed with animal fat. For centuries, though, people who wanted to avoid caffeine jitters turned to bitter, coffee-like tangs from substitutes such as chicory. It wasn’t until 1905, in Bremen, Germany, that Ludwig Roselius, a former coffee-roaster apprentice, discovered a method for producing a tasteful, caffeine-free version of the real stuff.
Roselius’s legacy lives on in the form of waiters who carry coffee in one hand and decaf in the other. His invention occupies an odd place in the culinary landscape—rarely loved, sometimes endured, and often despised by coffee purists. But in its early years, decaf found a particularly appreciative and supportive audience: the Third Reich. As the Nazi Party assumed power, its leaders recommended decaf as a way to avoid caffeine, a poison in their eyes. More than a health campaign, decaf was part of a state policy intended to preserve a healthy Aryan population.
Like many inventions, the history of decaf coffee is a bit muddy. According to the book 100 Years of Kaffee HAG, Roselius attributed his father’s death in 1902 to drinking too much coffee, so he invented decaf to save other addicts. (It’s not a completely ridiculous idea; his father worked in the coffee industry.) But decaf may have been an accidental discovery—other accounts describe Roselius receiving a shipment of beans that arrived in a vessel flooded with seawater. Rather than toss the salted supply, Roselius and his colleagues discovered new grounds: After brewing, analyzing, and tasting the beans, they found that the coffee’s flavor was unaffected except for a salty tinge. The seawater had somehow removed the caffeine, too.
Either way, Roselius and his colleagues patented their decaffeination process in Germany in 1905. The following year, Roselius founded the company Kaffee Handels-Aktiengesellschaft, better known as Kaffee HAG, which marketed decaf as a luxury good in Germany. He’d soon sell it across Europe under the name Sanka, or “sans caféine,” and, after World War I, in the United States.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Roselius adapted his marketing to the Weimar Republic’s health and fitness crazes. “The exquisite bean coffee, Kaffee HAG, protects the heart and nerves,” reads one ad, depicting a svelte man in a rider’s outfit. Advances in science, technology, and mechanization, along with the rise of cinema, prompted the craze, as well as movements calling for a return to pre-modern health practices. Corinna Treitel, a professor of history at the Washington University in St. Louis, says that citizens who subscribed to health movements like the Lebensreform (“Life Reform”), which included ardent nationalists, desired more “natural” and “back-to-nature” lifestyles.
In addition to advocating nudism and organic farming, Treitel says, Life Reform practitioners followed pre-modern diets that swore off stimulants, which included refined sugar, high-proof alcohol, tobacco, meat, and caffeine. This philosophy influenced the public health policy of the Nazi regime. “In the 1930s, all of this is part of a Nazi health movement, which became basically part of official policy,” Uwe Spiekermann, a historian at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, says. “So [Nazi health researchers] like Hans Schreiber, Leonardo Conti, they were backers of these crusades against alcohol, against tobacco, against coffee.”
The Third Reich pushed decaffeinated drinks as official state policy.
THE MODERN VERSION OF YOUR morning coffee first appeared in the 15th century, and it replaced caffeine fixes that ranged from weak, coffee-bean tea to coffee beans mixed with animal fat. For centuries, though, people who wanted to avoid caffeine jitters turned to bitter, coffee-like tangs from substitutes such as chicory. It wasn’t until 1905, in Bremen, Germany, that Ludwig Roselius, a former coffee-roaster apprentice, discovered a method for producing a tasteful, caffeine-free version of the real stuff.
Roselius’s legacy lives on in the form of waiters who carry coffee in one hand and decaf in the other. His invention occupies an odd place in the culinary landscape—rarely loved, sometimes endured, and often despised by coffee purists. But in its early years, decaf found a particularly appreciative and supportive audience: the Third Reich. As the Nazi Party assumed power, its leaders recommended decaf as a way to avoid caffeine, a poison in their eyes. More than a health campaign, decaf was part of a state policy intended to preserve a healthy Aryan population.
Like many inventions, the history of decaf coffee is a bit muddy. According to the book 100 Years of Kaffee HAG, Roselius attributed his father’s death in 1902 to drinking too much coffee, so he invented decaf to save other addicts. (It’s not a completely ridiculous idea; his father worked in the coffee industry.) But decaf may have been an accidental discovery—other accounts describe Roselius receiving a shipment of beans that arrived in a vessel flooded with seawater. Rather than toss the salted supply, Roselius and his colleagues discovered new grounds: After brewing, analyzing, and tasting the beans, they found that the coffee’s flavor was unaffected except for a salty tinge. The seawater had somehow removed the caffeine, too.
Either way, Roselius and his colleagues patented their decaffeination process in Germany in 1905. The following year, Roselius founded the company Kaffee Handels-Aktiengesellschaft, better known as Kaffee HAG, which marketed decaf as a luxury good in Germany. He’d soon sell it across Europe under the name Sanka, or “sans caféine,” and, after World War I, in the United States.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Roselius adapted his marketing to the Weimar Republic’s health and fitness crazes. “The exquisite bean coffee, Kaffee HAG, protects the heart and nerves,” reads one ad, depicting a svelte man in a rider’s outfit. Advances in science, technology, and mechanization, along with the rise of cinema, prompted the craze, as well as movements calling for a return to pre-modern health practices. Corinna Treitel, a professor of history at the Washington University in St. Louis, says that citizens who subscribed to health movements like the Lebensreform (“Life Reform”), which included ardent nationalists, desired more “natural” and “back-to-nature” lifestyles.
In addition to advocating nudism and organic farming, Treitel says, Life Reform practitioners followed pre-modern diets that swore off stimulants, which included refined sugar, high-proof alcohol, tobacco, meat, and caffeine. This philosophy influenced the public health policy of the Nazi regime. “In the 1930s, all of this is part of a Nazi health movement, which became basically part of official policy,” Uwe Spiekermann, a historian at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, says. “So [Nazi health researchers] like Hans Schreiber, Leonardo Conti, they were backers of these crusades against alcohol, against tobacco, against coffee.”
Seriously, a sure way to get yourself murdered, would be to offer me a cup of coffee in the morning, and give me decaf. Just no. No no no no no.