A Latte History
The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History March 30 - April 5.
I love coffee. I drink too much of it.
There was a time in my life, for about 20 years, when I didn’t drink it or eat chocolate. Perhaps unrelated, I was much thinner during this time.
Then, in 2015, I decided to see if I could drink a latte without dying. In a parking lot in Raleigh, North Carolina, I consumed a large one, and by a minor miracle, I lived. I have been hooked ever since.
Coffee itself has been around for a long time. We can trace it back to an Ethiopian goat herder who discovered that certain berries his flock ate made them all spaz out. He tried it himself and felt so energized despite having the boring job of watching goats all day.
With the help of local monks who figured out how to soak the berries in hot water and brew a drink that kept them awake all night, coffee was officially born and spread like a religion. Over the centuries, we developed all sorts of coffee-related stuff, including coffee houses, places where you could go and hang out for hours and drink. Since coffee is so accessible, that’s why lattes at the airport cost $12.
When I wasn’t drinking coffee or any caffeine, I kept telling everyone it’s a horrible side effect – like how I am a spaz when I take the substance. But actually, coffee has a lot of health benefits. Studies over the decades have shown that drinking coffee regularly can reduce Type 2 Diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. In 2024, thanks to Joe Biden, the FDA classified coffee as “healthy.” So drink those $12 lattes before you board!
This week, we recognize the beginning of a major player in the coffee world, when Starbucks first opened its doors in Seattle, Washington, on March 30, 1971. Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin, and Zev Siegl met as students at the University of San Francisco and discovered their shared passion for coffee. They partnered with Alfred Peet, a pioneer in the coffee roasting business. Soon, the three guys decided to open their own store selling high-end coffee beans roasted by Peet. In fact, Siegl, who taught high school history, quit his job and worked in the store, which makes him my personal hero. And just like that, Starbucks, in reference to the novel Moby Dick, which I have not read, was born.
Fast forward to 1987, and former Starbucks marketer Howard Schultz purchased the company and began creating “espresso drinks.” Funny thing about espresso: for the longest time, I called it “expresso” because I’m a moron. I do like the occasional espresso martini. I’m also on this White Russian kick right now for some reason.
Anyway, Schultz turned Starbucks into the biggest coffee company in the United States. They put stores everywhere, including in your local grocery, because heaven forbid if you had to drive down the street to a free-standing store. Instead, let’s grab an “expresso” before I hit the cereal aisle!
Coffee has a market value of around $200 billion and is expected to grow by another 100 billion over the next ten years. In 2024, the price of coffee increased by 37% thanks to Joe Biden and his inability to manage Asian supply chains or the weather in Brazil. Today, your standard vanilla latte costs about $1.00 more than it did under the last administration, so we have to bomb Iran to ensure prices go down. I think I have that correct. Go ahead and fact-check me on that one.
I’m not a big coffee snob, but there is an Ethiopian coffee place in my old DC neighborhood that I loved, but now I just bounce back and forth from the two Starbucks in my upscale neighborhood – it just depends on if I need to get my steps in. But I’ll pretty much drink any coffee.
Okay, let’s highlight what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events mark their anniversary, ending in 5 or 0. Here’s what I got:
1. President Ronald Reagan was shot in the chest by John Hinckley on March 30, 1981. Reagan hadn’t been president that long before someone wanted to shoot him. He was walking out of the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, and waving to everyone, when Hinckley shot him and his press secretary, Jim Brady. I wrote about how this incident interrupted my daily dose of hot dog eating and cartoon watching. Reagan and Brady are both long gone, but Hinckley lives freely in Virginia, where he writes songs and wrote a memoir last year. He probably goes to Starbucks.
2. Two guys named Steve founded Apple Computer on April 1, 1976. Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and another guy named Ronald personally assembled computers and began selling them from Steve’s parents’ garage. Wozniak was the brains behind how the computer worked, Jobs was the master of selling it, and Ron bailed because he wanted to buy a car or something. Who knows. I have an iPhone that tracks how many steps I take to get my Starbucks while watching John Hinckley on YouTube sing a song he wrote.
3. Ted Kaczynski was caught and arrested on April 3, 1996. Known as The Unabomber, Kaczynski was a college mathematician who worked at the University of California at Berkeley. He despised the advancement of technology and began mailing bombs in 1978 to schools, airlines, and technology stores in the hope of deterring what he considered the damage modern technology would do to society. What’s crazy was Ted never got around to bombing the Steves and Apple computers, who, over the course of his bombing career, were flourishing in the old neighborhood. His terrorism eventually bullied major newspapers into publishing his manifesto, including Penthouse. One of the manifesto points was that he specifically called out following sports teams as a waste of modern life, and I gotta say, he nailed that one. He was soon discovered by his brother, who recognized the crazy and alerted the feds. Ted committed suicide in 2023, but in light of other high-profile prisoners who have passed away in prison in mysterious fashion, are we sure? Let’s meet up at the Starbucks in the local Kroger and look through our iPhones for fun.
This was a busy weekend for Anonymous and me. We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with our neighbors. Yes, I know it’s been about two weeks since it was St. Patrick’s Day, but due to scheduling, this was the weekend we could have pulled it off.
It was a good lesson in paying attention to what you order. We ordered too much wine, too much beer, and hilariously, too many paper green straws.
Anonymous put me in charge of ordering the supplies we would need for the party, with the instruction that we would need supplies for at least “three years,” and I took that direction and ran with it!
Somehow, I ordered 4,000 green straws. This is what 4,000 green straws look like:
So I will be giving away lots of green straws in the future. I should do something fun for subscribers. Got any ideas?
Okay, It’s Holy Week. I will be back on Saturday with another edition of the VP Rankings. But I will be taking off next Monday, April 6th, due to Easter. So no Monday Maundy Newsletter next week.
Thanks again for the continued support. We remain over 400 subscribers. Pretty awesome!
Have a blessed week, and I’ll see you soon.
Okay,
Chris
