Have you tried to find Postum lately? Did you ever drink this caffeine fee substitute for coffee? Plenty of people did. According to a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor called “Postum Drinkers No More” the product is being discontinued. Apparently, there isn’t a real substitute for Postum, a beverage made from roasted grains, and so people who can’t drink caffeine (Mormons are one example) aren’t too happy about this.
Here are the facts about the death of Postum coffee substitutes:
1. The death was apparently unannounced, sudden and relatively quiet.
It was so quiet that regular Postum users went to their grocery store shelves and found them empty. You can read about that here: www.csmonitor.com/2008/0312/p13s02-lifo.html in a link to a related Christian Science Monitor story. Imagine if you walked into a grocery store and wanted your favorite bag of potato chips or Cheetos or your favorite….food or beverage of choice…only to discover it had all disappeared overnight. That is what happened to many Postum coffee substitute drinkers.
I’ve tasted Postum and don’t think it resembled coffee. But I guess plenty of people were attached to it and they are fighting back. They aren’t providing funeral services or announcements yet.
2. For those who happened to stock up on Postum, intentionally or not, there appears to be a lucrative side market in the stuff.
You can figure that out by going to Ebay and checking out the going rates for Postum. As of this writing, six jars are being listed for a total of about $119.00 plus $12.95 in shipping. That’d be enough to pay for quite a few things besides Postum but those who are loyal to the product seem to be paying a pretty penny for it, although the optimistic seller who had it listed at $119.00 hasn’t sold those six jars – yet.
From what I can tell, bidding does get frenzied towards the end of the auctions. For a sense of the final auction values, I looked at completed auctions. Four jars went for $160 plus $8.95 in shipping. Gee, maybe Kraft ought to consider their decision to discontinue making Postum coffee substitute.
You, too, can look at those auctions on Ebay by going to www.ebay.com and putting Postum coffee in the “search items” box, usually located at the top right of every page there. For now, Postum lives on – at least, on Ebay.
3. Postum comes in both red and blue jars. The blue jars are the original flavor and the red jar is not.
4. It isn’t easy to make your own Postum.
Making Postum can take 5-6 hours, certainly longer than brewing an average cup of coffee. Also, to get it to come out right. a person or group of people would have to stir the grain every 20 minutes or so. See the Christian Science Monitor llnk (above) for details. Most people aren’t willing to spend that much time for a beverage.
5. Maybe a smaller company will rescue Postum, just like Ovaltine was rescued.
Personally, I don’t get the appeal of Ovaltine either but those who love it really love it so when it was discontinued, another company simply bought the right to make and sell it and it appeared back on the shelves.
6. Loyal Postum coffee substitute drinkers are starting a major blog and mail campaign to get it back on the market.
I’d sure like to know who all those people are. A similar campaign was used to get the television show Jericho back on the air – and it worked. But then the show was canceled again. What does this prove? Maybe that people get upset when they face the loss of something but sometimes not enough to stay loyal to a product or television show once their efforts prove successful.Apathy, a busy schedule or another television show or product grabs their attention.
Or maybe the network decides to pull the plug on the television show or stop making Postum for their own reasons. In the case of Postum, it apparently came as a shock and was not announced very loudly, according to some Postum users (one of which lives near us and is peeved).
7. People are creating their own recipes for subsitutes:
You can see them here at the Chow.com website: www.chow.com/grinder/4524
8. Since writing a blog about Postum, this guy has gotten over 320 hits, many of them recently:
jeffwerner.ca/2004/12/postum_coffee_s.html He had no idea the post would be so popular. He happened to drink it, liked it, had it before bed for awhile and then stopped drinking it.
Meanwhile, people found his post and started posting him about Postum , growing increasingly desperate as time went on and Postum supplies started to dry up.
9. Here is where people seem to be going in their fight to bring back Postum. Can Postum coffee substitute truly be saved? Stay tuned for further announcements:
www.BringBackPostum.blogspot.com/
