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Mr. Coffee

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Mr. Coffee
Company typeSubsidiary
Founded1972; 52 years ago (1972) in Cleveland, Ohio U.S. [1]
FounderSamuel Glazer
Vincent Marotta
Headquarters
Cleveland, Ohio
,
United States
Productscoffee makers, espresso makers, iced tea makers
ParentJarden Consumer Solutions
Websitemrcoffee.com

Mr. Coffee is a registered trademark of Sunbeam Products, Inc. d/b/a Jarden Consumer Solutions. The Mr. Coffee brand manufactures automatic-drip kitchen coffee machines as well as other products.

History

Vincent Marotta and Samuel Glazer founded a company in Cleveland, Ohio[2] focused on coffee delivery called North American Systems (NAS) in the early '70s.[3] At this time, Marotta had an idea to create an automatic drip coffeemaker. Marotta and Glazer hired two former Westinghouse engineers, Edmund Abel and Edwin Schulze, to engineer the idea.[4][5] In 1972, the Mr. Coffee brand drip coffeemaker was made available for home use.[6] Prior to this machine, coffee was primarily made in a percolator which often gave it a bitter and burned flavor. The new Mr. Coffee machine produced a much more uniform brewing temperature which resulted in a much better flavor. Unlike later models, this original offering, with its distinctive yellow and white gingham decal, used gravity to immediately pull water through a heating section and allowed to drip freely into carafe below. Later units used thermosyphons (similar to the principle operating geysers) to carry water up from a reservoir as it reached boiling point in the lift tube, identical to the percolator principle but without the endless recirculation and reheating of the coffee.

In 1973, Marotta convinced former professional baseball player Joe DiMaggio[7] to become an advertising spokesman for the brand. This coffee maker revolutionized coffee and sold more than one million units by April 1974.

A succession of products from 1992 to 1995 — the Potato Perfect, the Mr. Coffee Juicer, Food Dehydrator by Mr. Coffee, Breadmaker by Mr. Coffee, and Mrs. Tea Hot Tea Maker — contributed about one-third of Mr. Coffee’s total annual sales of $174 million by 1995. The device variation for tea called Mrs. Tea differed from the Mr. Coffee branded appliance only in detail as the company claims the drip process works equally well for tea as for coffee,[8] although the result is often a darker, samovar type of tea.

In the 1980s, Mr. Coffee endured a leveraged buyout and two significant changes in ownership before being acquired by Health O Meter Products, Inc. (eventually known as Signature Brands USA) in 1994.[9] In 1998 Sunbeam Corporation (eventually known as American Household, Inc.) purchased Signature Brands. In January 2005, Jarden acquired American Household, Inc.[10]

The Mr. Coffee name is well known in American popular culture. It is mentioned in The Bloodhound Gang's song "The Bad Touch", in the full version of the Cheers theme song, the Marah song "Christian St." and in the title of Raymond Carver's short story "Mr. Coffee and Mr. Fixit." Mr. Coffee is mentioned in the American TV sitcom Seinfeld.[episode needed] In Hoyle Card Games 2011, Rhett said "That's worse than Mr. Coffee".[11]

Although a Mr. Coffee branded appliance appears in a scene in the 1995 feature film Apollo 13, a number of critics specified that this was technically inaccurate, since the film's story occurred in 1970, and the Mr. Coffee branded appliance was not introduced until 1972.[12])

There have been several parodies in popular media which demonstrates how well known the brand name (and its product) is. It has been parodied in the Back to the Future trilogy as Mr. Fusion (which was actually made for the movie from a Krups coffee grinder),[citation needed] and in Spaceballs as Mr. Radar and Mr. Coffee itself. In the Futurama movie The Beast with a Billion Backs, one character can be seen using a Mr. Wino machine to make wine directly from grapes.

Mr. Coffee today

Recently, the Mr. Coffee product development team altered how their drip coffee maker works with a method dubbed “Optimal Brew”. The coffee maker does not use the previously mentioned traditional method of routing the water over a heating coil under the warming plate invented by Marotta, Abel, and Schulze. Instead, a small flash boiling chamber flash heats the water to deliver the water to the beans within a temperature range of 195-200 degrees F.[13] Heating the water this way allows 10 cups to be brewed in generally less than eight minutes depending on the barometric pressure.[14] Once brewed the coffee stays warm in a thermal carafe without requiring a heating plate which could potentially burn the coffee. This coffee maker engineered and designed by TEAMS Design USA and the Jarden team, won a Red Star Award[15] in 2010 and an Appliance Magazine EID Award [16] in 2011.

More recently, Mr. Coffee has licensed the Keurig K-cup technology[17] to introduce a line of single serve hot beverage machines. Also recently introduced, the Mr. Coffee Cafe Latte brews coffee as well as whips in steamed milk in one step.[18]

More than 600,000 coffeemakers, Chinese-made Mr. Coffee Single Cup Brewing System models, are being voluntarily recalled in the United States and Canada. A brewing malfunction can release steaming water and grounds. More than 61 injuries, including facial and hand burns, have been reported.[19]

References

  1. ^ "Here’s to Mr. Coffee, Known to Some as Sam", The New York Times, March 21, 2012
  2. ^ About Mr. Coffee at MrCoffee.com
  3. ^ History of NAS
  4. ^ NAS hires engineers at TheGreatWorkPlace.com
  5. ^ "North American Systems, Inc". The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Case Western Reserve University. 20 June 1997. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  6. ^ Mr. Coffee History at MrCoffee.com
  7. ^ "Mr. Coffee and Joltin' Joe DiMaggio". NPR.org. 29 October 2005. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  8. ^ Mrs. Tea Introduction at MrCoffee.com
  9. ^ Detailed Company History at answers.com
  10. ^ Jarden acquisitions at JardenCS.com
  11. ^ Download Hoyle Card Games 2011
  12. ^ "Goofs for Apollo 13". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved August 2015. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  13. ^ National Coffee Brewing Association
  14. ^ Blogger reviews Optimal Brew
  15. ^ 2010 Red Star Design Award
  16. ^ 2011 Appliance Magazine EID Award
  17. ^ Mr. Coffee licenses Keurig K-Cup technology
  18. ^ Introducing Mr. Coffee Cafe Latte
  19. ^ Barnett, Jim. "Voluntary recall of 600,000 coffeemakers due to burn risk". CNN. Retrieved 1 September 2012.
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