Coffee crisis!

Massive protests force the DDR government to fund coffee imports

The German thirst for coffee has often outstripped the availability of imports, and a range of coffee substitutes were developed from the 18th century to enable poorer Germans to access a nice hot beverage. Coffee was in short supply throughout Germany after 1945, and the East German government subsidized the popular “brown gold” in an attempt to keep the working classes on-side. Ordinary West Germans would often send gifts of coffee – this source covered about 20% of demand. On average, ordinary East Germans spent almost as much on coffee as they did on furniture.

With poor harvests causing coffee prices to skyrocket in the mid-1970s, and the DDR foreign exchange reserves having been depleted by higher oil prices, East Germany could no longer afford as many luxuries such as coffee beans. The response was to launch a new Kaffee-Mix, with only 51% coffee and a host of other ingredients including pea flour. Incensed not only at the damage that this new brand of “Erich’s Instant” did to East German coffee machines, but also at the assault on their palate, East Germans engaged in much muttering about a political system that forced workers to drink what they viewed as little better than rat poison. The anger was such that even the Stasi was alarmed, and the government reacted by withdrawing the new brand of “coffee”. Even after commodity prices had fallen, the DDR was careful to make friends with socialist states in warmer climes and used East German weapons deliveries to ensure a steady flow of the important brown beans to the East.