Photo: Maxwell Coffee Mix. Credit: Dongsuh Foods Corporation.
South Korea was making coffee history even before it became a global powerhouse of artisanal coffee. In 1976, Dongsuh Foods Corporation 동서식품 began selling Maxwell Coffee Mix, an instant coffee mix containing a blend of powdered coffee, creamer and sugar. Its inventor Jo Pil-je 조필제, a former vice president of Dongsuh Foods, passed away in Seoul on April 20.
After graduating from Seoul National University 국립서울대학교 in 1950, Jo spent 24 years in the shipbuilding industry before becoming a food and beverage executive with Dongsuh. Jo oversaw the development of instant coffee and plant-based creamer, which ultimately inspired him to create a pre-mixed instant coffee.
Dongsuh’s coffee mix, now called Maxim 맥심, played a key role in popularizing coffee in South Korea in the 1970s and 80s, when it was a specialized drink available only at coffeehouses rather than a household item. The instant coffee industry grew still further in the wake of the 1997 East Asian Financial Crisis, when layoffs of the office managers formerly responsible for preparing coffee pushed executives to brew their own using instant coffee mix.
