Black Gold, Lifer Juice and Nectar of the Gods

RT Cunningham — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 06:52:59 +0000

It's amazing to me how one thing can be called by so many different things in the English language. Sometimes it's even something that's imported from another language. If you try to use any of the terms instead of the word "coffee" in many foreign countries (like my home in the Philippines), you'll just get a blank stare.

Synonyms for Coffee

There are a lot of synonyms for coffee that are purely American colloquialisms. Most are slang terms, but some are real words. Here's a brief list of the terms I've heard enough times to remember:

Black Gold
Coffee (naturally)
Java
Joe
Lifer Juice
Nectar of the Gods

I want to take focus specifically on three of them: Black Gold, Lifer Juice and Nectar of the Gods.

Black Gold

When coffee is first poured, before any thing is added to dilute the taste, the natural color is normally a very dark brown. It's dark enough to be called black and that's why it's called black coffee. Some coffee connoisseurs (like me) call it black gold even though black gold is an original slang term for oil (petroleum).

If you think "black gold" isn't used to refer to coffee very often, you're mistaken. A movie with a title like "Black Gold" wouldn't be made unless the term is commonly used somewhere.

Lifer Juice

This is what the senior enlisted men called coffee, on occasion, when I was still in the military. It's what I called it. You don't believe me? Have you ever seen the movie "Heartbreak Ridge" (a Clint Eastwood movie from 1986)? Although not quite correct, one of the quotes from the movie that was uttered by the character of Sergeant Major Choozoo was "Hey crotch rot! You gonna slurp my lifer's juice out of my own cup?" Gunnery Sergeant ("Gunny") Highway responded with "Yeah, I guess I should have gotten shots before hand."

Why was it called "Lifer Juice"? The name "Lifer" was given to anyone in the military who reenlisted beyond their first enlistment term, sometimes used in a derogatory manner. I usually countered with something like "I'm not a lifer, I'm a career Marine" in order neutralize the effect when used to insult me.

Nectar of the Gods

This hasn't been used to describe coffee as often as any other term, but it's used occasionally. It's also used to describe beer and certain highly caffeinated carbonated beverages (soda, soda pop, pop). Of course, the original nectar of the gods is wine.

Wine dates back to the 6th century BC, when it was first introduced in Persia. Coffee wasn't discovered until the 9th century AD, in the highlands of Ethiopia. The older drink takes precedence. Of course the bible story where Jesus turns water into wine adds credence to the claim.

Joe and Java

I know that Joe was a slang word for coffee during World War II, but no one really knows when and where it originated. I rarely heard it used for coffee when I was in the US and I never hear it in the Philippines. Here, foreigners are called "Joe" by some people when the people don't know the foreigner's names. I've only been called Joe a couple of times in a period of more than two years.

The term "java" get's its origin from the island of Java in Indonesia. While it's also used to refer to a specific programming language, the usage of java in place of coffee predates the usage for the programming language. I can't give you any specific date, but I know it was being used before anyone ever heard of the programming language.

It's Just Coffee

I no longer call coffee anything but coffee. It's called "kape" in the Tagalog (Filipino) language and "cafe" (with or without an accent mark) or "kapi" in other languages. Most people in most countries understand the English version of coffee, so it's best that I stick to using it when I'm not sure what it's called wherever I'm at.

I may be missing some terms, although I doubt it. What do YOU call coffee?

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Black Gold, Lifer Juice and Nectar of the Gods