If you drink coffee, raise your mug and offer a brief toast to Vincent Marotta Sr., one of the men who helped transform the beverage from a bitter, boiled brew most people simply endured to one they savored and enjoyed.
"Prior to Mr. Coffee, you know, the favorite way of drinking coffee was through the percolator," Marotta told NPR in 2005. "Perk up the stem, you know, and it would recycle the coffee and then over the grounds again and again and again. It was really an outmoded way of making coffee."
Marotta, one of the co-founders of Mr. Coffee, died at his Cleveland-area home on Saturday at the age of 91. His cause of death was not disclosed.
Marotta and his business partner, Samuel Glazer, hired two engineers to design the machine, The Associated Press reported. What they created would become the standard for home-brewed coffee for decades: Hot water (but not boiling) delivered into a filter-lined basket filled with coffee grounds, which then slowly drips into a carafe. The carafe sat on a hot plate so the coffee wouldn't get cold.
Mr. Coffee became one of the first automatic drip brewers sold for the consumer market when it was introduced in 1972.
Once Marotta persuaded baseball legend Joe DiMaggio to become the Mr. Coffee spokesman the following year, sales took off and America was officially on the path toward becoming a nation of coffee snobs.
"Having Joe DiMaggio as the pitchman was incredible. They were instructional commercials," Glazer's widow, Jeanne, told the Naples News. "Joe showed everyone how to make a cup of coffee. What no one ever knew is that it took Joe 30 takes to make one commercial."
Indeed, according to NPR, DiMaggio had an ulcer and rarely drank coffee himself, preferring Sanka or decaf instead. But with him as its pitchman, Mr. Coffee eventually employed more than 1,000 workers who created 42,000 machines per day, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Marotta almost had a career in baseball himself. Although he signed with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1942, Marotta ended up being drafted into the military. He did get a chance to play football in college after World War II, per AP.
Marotta served as chairman and chief executive of the company until it was sold in a leveraged buyout in 1987, The New York Times reported. He then focused on real estate and philanthropy.
Marotta is survived by Ann, his wife of more than 60 years, six children and 11 grandchildren. Glazer died in 2012 at the age of 89.
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