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Cup of joe??? where does this phrase come from?
Posted by Bruce Kahl on February 10, 2000
In Reply to: Cup of joe??? where does this phrase come from? posted by joey on February 10, 2000
: where does the phrase "cup of joe" come from in reference to getting a cup of coffee?
All I have is a passel of bigtime maybes:
It may be a variant of "java," also a popular term for coffee since
the 19th century, when the island of Java in Indonesia was a major
source of the world's coffee.
There is/was a company here in NY named Martinson's Coffee which was owned by a man named Joe Martinson. The whole neighborhood would have the fantastic aroma of coffee roasting and there came the name a cup of joe.
Maybe the term started in the US Navy when Admiral Josephus Daniels outlawed alcohol, except for special occasions. So the sailors switched to coffe and asked for a "cup of Joe".
