8 drinks that were everywhere before Starbucks took over

My dad still drinks instant coffee.

Not because he can't afford better. Not because he doesn't know about specialty roasts or French presses or pour-overs.

He drinks it because that's what coffee was when he was growing up. You boiled water, you stirred in a spoonful of Folgers crystals, and you got on with your day.

No ritual. No third place. No grande iced vanilla latte with oat milk.

Just coffee.

That conversation made me realize how much Starbucks, and the coffee culture it created, changed what we drink. Not just coffee, but the entire landscape of beverages.

Before Starbucks became ubiquitous, before every corner had a coffee shop with a chalkboard menu, people drank different things. Simpler things. Things that didn't require a barista or a specialty menu or an app to order.

Here are eight drinks that were everywhere before Starbucks took over.

1) Instant coffee

Instant coffee was the default for decades.

It was convenient. It was cheap. It didn't require equipment or skill. You could make it at work, at home, anywhere you had hot water.

Folgers, Maxwell House, Nescafé. These were household names. Coffee wasn't a craft or an experience. It was a utility. Caffeine delivery in its most efficient form.

Starbucks changed that. Coffee became artisanal. Instant became something you apologized for, something you only drank in emergencies or when camping.

But for Boomers and older Gen X, instant coffee wasn't a compromise. It was just coffee.

And a lot of them still drink it, unbothered by the judgment of people who won't touch anything that isn't single-origin and ethically sourced.

2) Diner coffee in ceramic mugs with free refills

Before coffee shops became destinations, diners were where you got your coffee.

Bottomless cups. Ceramic mugs. Coffee that sat on a burner for hours and tasted like burnt regret.

But it was part of the culture. You'd sit in a booth, order breakfast, and the server would keep your mug full without asking.

It wasn't about the quality. It was about the ritual. The social space. The fact that you could sit for an hour nursing a two-dollar cup and no one rushed you.

Starbucks co-opted that "third place" idea, but diners had it first. They were the original hangout spots, the places where coffee was an excuse to be somewhere that wasn't work or home.

Now diners are disappearing. And the coffee culture they represented, simple, unpretentious, communal, went with them.

3) Percolated coffee from a stovetop pot

My grandmother had a stovetop percolator. Aluminum. Dented from decades of use.

Every morning, she'd fill it with water and grounds, set it on the stove, and wait for that distinctive percolating sound. The smell would fill the house.

It wasn't smooth. It wasn't nuanced. But it was strong, and it was what coffee was supposed to taste like.

Percolators disappeared when drip coffee makers became standard. And drip coffee got replaced by single-serve machines and espresso-based drinks.

Now percolators are vintage items you find at estate sales. Relics of a time when making coffee was a process you did once in the morning, not a transaction you repeated throughout the day.

4) Tang and other powdered drink mixes

Tang was marketed as the drink of astronauts. It was bright orange, vaguely citrus-flavored, and came in a jar you scooped from.

Kids drank it. Adults drank it. It was everywhere in the '70s and '80s.

And it wasn't just Tang. Kool-Aid, Country Time lemonade, Nestlé Quik. Powdered drinks were a whole category.

You mixed them with water, you drank them, and no one questioned whether they were "real" juice or not.

Then bottled drinks became cheaper and more convenient. Juice boxes, sports drinks, bottled water. The ritual of mixing powder into a pitcher became unnecessary.

Starbucks didn't kill powdered drinks directly, but it was part of the shift toward ready-made beverages. Toward drinks as products you bought, not things you made.

5) Sanka and other decaf options

Decaf used to be its own thing. Not "a decaf latte." Just... decaf coffee.

Sanka was the dominant brand. Freeze-dried decaf crystals in an orange jar. People drank it at night, after dinner, when they wanted the ritual of coffee without the caffeine.

It wasn't good. Everyone knew it wasn't good. But it served a purpose.

Starbucks made decaf versions of everything, which sounds like progress. But it also made standalone decaf feel obsolete.

Now if you want decaf, you order your regular drink and add "decaf" to it. Sanka and its competitors faded because the coffee culture shifted. Decaf stopped being its own category and became a modification.

6) Hot chocolate from a packet

Swiss Miss. Carnation. Nestlé.

Hot chocolate used to come in packets. You boiled water or milk, you stirred in the powder, you topped it with mini marshmallows if you were fancy.

It was a winter staple. Cheap, easy, comforting.

Then coffee shops started making "artisanal" hot chocolate. Real chocolate, steamed milk, whipped cream. It became a menu item, not something you made at home from a packet.

Kids still drink packet hot chocolate. But adults shifted to ordering it out, paying five dollars for what used to cost fifty cents to make.

Starbucks turned hot chocolate into a premium product. And in doing so, made the packet version feel inferior.

7) Iced tea from a pitcher in the fridge

Iced tea used to be something you made at home.

You'd brew a pot of Lipton, add sugar while it was hot, pour it into a pitcher, and let it chill in the fridge. That was iced tea.

Maybe you'd add lemon. Maybe you'd make it sweet, Southern-style. But it was homemade, and it was always available.

Then bottled iced tea became a thing. Snapple, Arizona, Lipton's own bottled versions. And coffee shops started making iced tea drinks with fruit flavors and sweeteners and branding.

Now when people want iced tea, they buy it. The idea of brewing it yourself feels almost old-fashioned.

Starbucks didn't invent bottled iced tea, but it contributed to the shift. Drinks became things you purchased, not things you prepared.

8) Milk. Just... milk.

This one sounds absurd, but it's true.

Before oat milk lattes and almond milk cappuccinos, people just drank milk.

A glass of milk with dinner. Milk with breakfast. Milk as a snack.

It was normal. Unremarkable. Milk wasn't an ingredient in something else. It was the drink.

Starbucks didn't kill milk drinking directly, but the rise of coffee culture and specialty drinks shifted what people reached for.

Now milk is a modifier. Whole milk, 2%, skim, oat, almond, soy. It's what goes in your latte, not what you drink on its own.

And plain milk, the thing kids used to drink by the gallon, has become niche. Something only kids and bodybuilders still consume regularly.

What Starbucks actually changed

Starbucks didn't just introduce espresso drinks to America. It changed how we think about beverages.

Before Starbucks, drinks were simple. Functional. You made them at home or ordered them at diners. They were cheap, unpretentious, and largely invisible.

Starbucks made drinks into experiences. Into identities. Into products you paid a premium for because they were customized, branded, and Instagrammable.

It wasn't just about better coffee. It was about creating a culture where drinks became part of your daily ritual, your self-expression, your lifestyle.

And in that shift, the drinks that came before, instant coffee, powdered Tang, iced tea from a pitcher, started to feel outdated. Unsophisticated. Not worth your time or money.

What we lost

I'm not saying everything was better before Starbucks. Instant coffee genuinely tastes worse than a well-made pour-over. Powdered drinks were mostly sugar and artificial flavoring.

But something was lost too.

The simplicity. The accessibility. The fact that drinks didn't require a specialized vocabulary or a five-dollar price tag.

You could make coffee at home in two minutes. You could pour iced tea from a pitcher. You didn't need an app or a loyalty program or a barista to translate your order.

Drinks were just drinks. Not status symbols. Not lifestyle markers. Just things you drank.

And maybe, sometimes, that was enough.

My dad still drinks his instant coffee every morning. He doesn't care that it's not cool or craft or specialty-grade.

It wakes him up. It tastes like coffee. And that's all he needs it to do.

Maybe there's wisdom in that.