Sugar Lottery & Rocket Fuel

In the late 80's I was working for a large manufacturing company in Rochester, UK.  The company had a number of Maxpax coffee machines although technically at the time all they did was dispense hot water and sugar with a cup filled with what looked like the cremated remains of a vole.  I can only assume they have improved over the years I have not used any since.  In the fact the best coffee machine ever was at an Italian bank in London where I worked for a brief period, no surprise there.  For a drinks machine it was pretty amazing plus it did drinkable tea which is rare at the best of times (do not remember the make of the machine).

I have digressed somewhat back to Maxpax machines, the one behind my office had an intermittent fault when you pressed the button for sugar.  Basically you got your cup filled with some weird powder put it under the sugar nozzle and press the button then moved it to the water nozzle and press the hot water button (it did cold too).  The problem was every time you press the button for sugar you were instantly entered into the Sugar Lottery by the Maxpax Universe which is to say if you were extremely unlucky enough to win then the sugar coming out of the nozzle would not stop until the machine had run out of sugar which normally took three or four empty cups.  At least you would not taste whatever was in the cup in the first place if you managed to pull the cup free in time and put an empty cup in its place.

The only thing that the machine was really used for was the hot and cold water plus the occasional bountiful supply of free sugar.  It was ten pence a cup I think.  In its later years they did a powdery orange flavour which was sort of passable on a hot day.

During this time I came across an instant coffee called Rocket Fuel made by Percol which I drank black without sugar, the milk from the Maxpax machine as I recall was another indiscernible white powder which definitely was not milk at least not my understanding of what milk is.

Rocket Fuel back then was indeed exactly what it said on the jar a serious energy boost!

If you have caffeine with sugar it tends to bring you back down although it messes with your blood sugar levels and you end up with food cravings that you do not really need. 

Did you know caffeine is a habit-forming drug?

At the time I was drinking on average five to six mugs a day.  I do not remember any warning labels on jars at the time maybe I missed them.

A couple of years ago I cut out all caffeine based drinks, the withdrawal symptoms were not pleasant for me or my co-workers.  I still have the occasional cup of tea or coffee maybe one a week that's my limit these days.

They stopped selling Rocket Fuel at the place I bought my food from back then however I just checked on Amazon and they sell it quite cheaply I am almost tempted to buy a jar: Rocket Fuel

Then again perhaps not.