Coffee Brands

In some countries there are hundreds of coffee brands to choose from.

Branding, in the sense of naming or labelling a product, plays an interesting part in coffee’s history.

At first, there was just coffee, and the Arabs who grew it tried to maintain a monopoly. As the drink’s popularity spread, the monopoly gave way and coffee began to be grown in different places. The places of origin gave their names to the different coffees. “Mocha” coffee came from a port in Yemen; “Java” coffee from an island in Indonesia.

Later on, coffee was taken to the Americas and the world learned to love names like “Hawaiian Kona” and “Jamaican Blue Mountain”.

You might have also heard of Turkish, Greek and Italian coffees. These labels describe the way the coffee is prepared rather than its origins. Coffees are also labelled by the type of bean – Arabica or Robusta.

The Dutch coffee merchants were among the first to establish their family names as brands. Other forms of labelling include certification systems such as fair trade or shade-grown.

A hundred years ago, you could send your children to buy coffee and be fairly sure of what they’d bring back. Not anymore. Your “global village” store, which of course includes the web, offers a bewildering array of choices. Now you can go for an international brand or try a local blend. You can buy soluble coffee, pods, ground coffee or roast beans.

If you don’t want to make the coffee yourself, you can get it from a restaurant, fast-food outlet or coffee house, and some of them will sell you coffee products to take home too. You can even get it in a can from a vending machine. You can drink your coffee with caffeine, decaffeinated or “half caff”. Choose Arabica or Robusta or a blend of both. Specify a region like Java or Ethiopia.

Specialty coffee roasters will provide coffee from a specific farm.

Your coffee can be certified as fair trade, environmentally responsible, shade grown or even bird friendly.

And that’s just coffee on its own. You can get delicious flavoured and mixed coffee drinks like cappuccinos, lattes and frappes.

Whatever your choice, one thing is certain: coffee is full of possibilities.

It took eight years of work to develop the original NESCAFÉ product. It seems like a long time, but our high quality standards would not allow an inferior product. Our commitment to quality has made NESCAFÉ the favourite coffee of many generations.

More than 70 years later, NESCAFÉ is a brand that is known and trusted around the world. The name is a combination of the first three letters of NESTLÉ, our parent company, and café, which is Portuguese for coffee. (Why Portuguese? Because it was the Brazilian government which first asked NESTLÉ to develop soluble coffee). Luckily, its three simple syllables have proven successful in every language.