French Press

It is easy to tune into the discussion about different brewing standards and methods of enjoyment that exist throughout cultures across the globe, but what about the aesthetics of advertising? What about the received ideas within the culture that shape the normative (or at the very least most prominent) rhetoric constructed around daily coffee enjoyment? Are those things worth comparing? Obviously I think the answers are yes I say yes we can yes.

l'or de maison du café by mrlavabo

And well we're on the subject, let's start by looking at the guiding metaphor used to advertise the sensory appeal of coffee in almost every French coffee commercial you will ever see (or, at least, every French coffee commercial I have seen; and I have seen my fare share) - sex. Given the relationship between sexuality, sensuality, and commodity fetishization that exists in the French media culture, and its relevance to coffee products and coffee consumption, the use of this metaphor makes perfect sense. The thing that becomes interesting about this sexy rhetoric when it's positioned within a more global (or, at least transatlantic) conversation is the role the concept of enjoyment plays in the advertising of coffee as a commodity.

Anyone who has seen an American coffee commercial knows the same approach isn't exactly taken in the States. When asked to conjure up the ideas associated with coffee advertising in America, most people will probably come up with something about a man waking up in the morning, steam rising from a pot of bold, black coffee, and the suggestion of preparing for the day's work. Why do we always like our coffee bold? Is it because the word is a more attractive synonym for bitter (hint: yes) or is it because there is something about the strength implied by the word that links coffee flavor to the productivity associated with caffeine intake? Although the French may like their coffee sensuous, Americans would appear to like it efficient.

So who's got it right? Do we want or coffee sexy? Do we want our coffee strong? And why can't we have it both ways?

The rhetorical difference between enjoyment and productivity as they apply to coffee consumption is pretty easy to get a sense of. The irony is that there is a disconnect between these (supposedly) competing discourses and the coffee characteristics from which they draw - the French ads just tend to combine sexually evocative imagery with capsules and liquid, while the American ads simply paint mornings and beginning the workday against some nebulous pastoral backdrop. Taste and caffeine content are only articulated in vaporous, metaphorical imagery (which is a wise choice because they certainly won't inhere in the products being advertised), and most of the rhetorical work done in these ads ties their discourses to the product in which the coffee in packaged, rather than the coffee itself.

So now we have an interrelated set of questions: on the strong-sexy spectrum of coffee advertising (yes, that is now the technical term), where do we tend to place our coffee based on the way it is advertised to us; secondly, what connections and disconnections exist between the discourses created around our coffee and the aesthetic and flavor-related qualities brewed into our coffee?

Thinking about the drink in this split way forces us to view it in a sort of parallax, as we move back-and-forth between the coffee in our heads and the coffee in our hands. What exists in the gap between these split views of what we drink? Is it a desire for productivity? Is it a desire for sensuous enjoyment? A desire for status, or simply for sugar? The ways in which we conceive of our coffee shows what a deep and integral role it plays in our personal and cultural lives.