Summary

Note: This object includes a cultural stereotype. Such representations are not condoned by Museums Victoria which considers them to be racist. Historical distance and context do not excuse or erase this fact.

Clear glass bottle with white plastic screw top lid with dark brown coffee and chicory essence liquid inside. Paper label has a maroon background and white writing. The logo of Bushells is on a navy blue background. Beneath the word "Bushells" is a Turkish man wearing a maroon fez hat. The bottle contains sweetened coffee and chicory essence.

Bushells was founded in Brisbane in 1883 as a tea shop by Alfred Bushell and soon proved to be popular. Alfred's sons, Philip and Walter joined and helped expand the business in 1899 and Bushell and Co moved into George St, Sydney, by then supplying tea across Australia. During the Great Depression of the1930s, chicory became a popular coffee substitute and additive and Bushells began making coffee and chicory essence. Coffee and chicory essence is still used in the present day to make cakes and iced coffees.

Physical Description

Clear glass bottle with white plastic screw top lid with dark brown coffee and chicory essence liquid inside. Paper label has a maroon background and white writing. The logo of bushells is on a navy blue background. Beneath the word "Bushells" is a Turkish man wearing a maroon fez hat.

Significance

The significance of the Bushells Coffee and Chicory Essence is in the use of an image of a Turkish man as a trademark to market the product to an Australian audience in the 2000s. This imagery is a continuation of this practice by Bushells and other makers of coffee and chicory essence since the 1930s. During the 1930s to the 1950s Bushells used both a Turkish man with a Fez and a Turkish man wearing a head cloth to advertise their coffee and chicory essence; however, since the 1960s they have exclusively used the Turkish man wearing a fez.

Other brands of coffee and chicory essence also used Turkish imagery in the 1940s to 50s and they include Turban and Pasha brands. By using romanticized oriental stereotypes of Turkey and Turkish men these companies hoped to provide their coffee substitute products with authenticity. Bushells has continued this use up to the present day.

Chicory (Cichorium intybus) is a perennial herb native to Europe, especially the Mediterranean. Its roots can be baked, ground and turned into a coffee substitute. In poor regions and during the Great Depression of the 1930s chicory became popular as a coffee substitute and continues to be used as an additive and substitute in many coffee products not only in the Mediterranean but also in India, southeast Asia, parts of the American south.

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