Café HAG is a worldwide brand of

decaffeinated Decaffeination is the removal of caffeine from coffee beans, cocoa, tea leaves, and other caffeine-containing materials. Decaffeinated drinks contain typically 1–2% of the original caffeine content, and sometimes as much as 20%. Decaffeinated ...

coffee currently owned by JDE Peet's.

History

Café HAG was founded in

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

in 1906 as ''Kaffee-Handels-Aktiengesellschaft'' (Coffee Trading Limited). The company's founder was Ludwig Roselius, who codeveloped the first commercial decaffeination process.

Alfred Runge Alfred Runge (1881–1946) was a German architect active in Bremen and its surroundings. He is remembered in particular for the Böttcherstraße houses he and his associate Eduard Scotland built for coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius. Early life Bor ...

and

Eduard Scotland Eduard Scotland (1885–1945) was a German architect active in Bremen. He is remembered in particular for the Böttcherstraße houses he and his associate Alfred Runge built for the coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius. Early life As a child, Scotl ...

designed posters and packaging, and are credited with designs that defined the company. In the 1920s and 1930s the company was known for the publication of the Café HAG albums of heraldic emblems. The coffee brand

Sanka Sanka is a brand of instant decaffeinated coffee, sold around the world, and was one of the earliest decaffeinated varieties. Sanka is distributed in the United States by Kraft Heinz. History Decaffeinated coffee was developed in 1903 by a team ...

spun off from Café HAG in 1910 for the French market ("Sanka" is a contraction of ''sans caféine''), and American rights to the Sanka name were sold in 1913. The Kellogg Company purchased Roselius's American branch (based in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

) in 1928, then sold it to General Foods in 1939. General Foods acquired the original German company in 1979. In 1990 Kraft Foods merged with General Foods, thus HAG and Sanka became brands of the American company. The spelling Café HAG was standardized in the 1990s. HAG has been owned by JDE Peet's since 2015. Café HAG TV adverts were popular in the 1980s; in particular the character Klaus (played by Roger Callister) became something of a cult figure among advertisement aficionados.

References

External links

hag.it
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cafe HAG JDE Peet's Products introduced in 1906 Coffee brands Coffee in Germany