This #ShouldBeOnACoffeeMug feature is brought to you in collaboration between The Rock Father, The J.M. Smucker Company and Life of Dad.
June is an important month around here, but it’s also a slightly weird one. Being that Father’s Day sits around the mid-month mark, that’s usually a signal for a huge influx of pitches I start getting from companies looking for some last-minute coverage in hopes of reaching families before the annual celebration of Fatherhood. Most of those don’t resonate with me, and some are fairly ridiculous — many of them coming from folks I don’t hear from during the rest of the year. It’s almost like having a second birthday. You see, I don’t need a “day” to celebrate what I am and always will be, but Father’s Day does hold some additional importance here – significance well-beyond selling greeting cards, novelty ties and coffee mugs (but remember that last one). I flipped the switch on this website on Father’s Day seven years ago. And our youngest daughter was born on Father’s Day weekend back in 2012. In life, there’s certain things that are ever-present, and for me, coffee is one of those things. Yes, coffee… and there’s familial importance. You could say that there’s “coffee in my blood,” but the more accurate a statement would be that it’s actually in my DNA. A close relationship with coffee has a lineage in my family, and that’s something that I’ve written about before. My great grandfather… my father’s grandfather, my grandmother’s father… he was a coffee taster by trade. My first name was his middle name.
Loving coffee as I do, I have some favorite brews, and that’s why the folks at Folgers® have been such great friends and partners over the years. I’ve written at length about their coffee, and that family connection was really brought into focus three years ago when I found myself at the coffee lab in Ohio, learning from the “cuppers” – people who now do the same job that my great grandfather did back in the 1930s.
While he had a signature brew way back when, I’d like to think that my great grandfather also had a favorite coffee mug. Father’s Day is a boom season for those – especially the “World’s Greatest Dad!” that legions of fathers will soon be sipping from. If I had my own mug – a “signature” mug – what phrase would be on it? I’ve thought about this for awhile, and I’m pretty sure it would say something that I’ve actually said in real life: “Coffee & Rock: Ready to Roll for the Day.”
That’s just been a morning mantra here at Rock Father HQ for as long as I can remember. My wife is out the door for work, and then I make the dash to finish getting our girls ready for school or whatever adventure we might have planned. Coffee fuels that, and Folgers is a go-to. And that’s not just some conveniently-timed marketing message for Father’s Day, either. Folgers is always here year-round, and I can prove that.
Last fall, Folgers® Coffeehouse Blend launched – and as I said then, it displaced Folgers Black Silk as my favorite (they’re both good). Folgers® Coffeehouse Blend is a medium-dark roast coffee that just plain tastes great no matter how you make it. My wife loves it – a splash of cream to make it just right. I like mine black, and usually from the K-Cups. What’s really cool about the Coffeehouse Blend is that the folks at Folgers have designed it to give great flavor for coffee lovers, no matter how it’s made. Automatic coffee maker, French press, iced coffee, pour over, cold brew, however you like to make it, Folgers Coffeehouse Blend has a taste that holds up.
This Father’s Day, a perfect start will be sitting in the kitchen with my girls, the sun shining as I sip from the Folgers in my cup and get ready to roll for the day by enjoying breakfast with my family. It’s the perfect start for every day.
