He might have rested easier knowing that his coffee was ethically sourced and roasted in a really cute barn. has been roasting coffee a mere sixty miles away from Stars Hollow in Millerton, NY since 1999. If Luke had cared at all about local businesses and sustainability (both of which he postures over mightily throughout the show), he easily could have discovered that Irving Farm Coffee Co. Seeing Luke dump canned coffee indiscriminately into that basket is like finding my mother in a beard and red pants putting Stretch Armstrong under the Christmas tree. The 1950s commercial below presents a clear view of the “Arab taster” logo the company used for eighty years: It appears to have been a well-known national brand, and it still may be. to cup, but discovered that it was, in fact, the only thing you can’t find in New York City. has been vacuum packing coffee for the better part of a hundred years.
Currently owned by Massimo Zanetti, which also owns Chock Full o’Nuts, Hills Bros. What was going on in that magical cup of coffee that kept Lorelai coming back to prickly, but sensitive Luke?Īlas, any fantasy of Luke experimenting with small-batch roasting were put to rest once I discovered that he was using San Francisco based Hills Bros. If Luke feels guilty for keeping Lorelai wired throughout the day, he has only himself to blame for serving “the best coffee in Stars Hollow.” Lorelai takes Luke’s coffee black while she adds cream to her work coffee and her refrigerated, pre-ground home coffee: a sure sign they are destined to break up and get back together weekly for the rest of their lives. Luke also acts as Lorelai’s reluctant pusher, keeping her fueled with a beverage he’s convinced will harm her central nervous system. Luke’s reliability helps Lorelai through the turbulence of many short-lived romances, a rocky relationship with her parents, and Rory’s burgeoning independence. The show’s plot lines largely revolve around the women’s love lives, particularly Lorelai’s “will-they-or-won’t-they” relationship with the aforementioned Luke, played by Scott Patterson. She ends up in the quaint and quirky town of Stars Hollow, where she raises her Ivy League bound daughter and best friend, Rory, played by Alexis Bledel.
Lauren Graham found enduring adoration on the show as Lorelai Gilmore, a quick-witted inn-manager who had run away from her privileged life in Hartford, CT after getting pregnant at 16.
Jenji Kohan was a producer for the first season, and would later create her own iced coffee-slurping heroine, Nancy Botwin, in the Showtime series ‘Weeds’, which kind of good for its first couple of seasons, and then positively dreadful as the decade wore on. Sherman-Palladino’s current show, ABC Family’s ‘Bunheads’, recently poked fun at the specialty industry (in a matter that left much to be desired, frankly, but still! A barista champion on TV!). The show’s love of coffee was woven throughout its lauded scripts, and would influence its creative team’s later efforts. It ran for six seasons on The WB and one colossally bad season on The CW, encompassing the years 2000-2007. Coffee is woven inextricably into the very fabric of Lorelai Gilmore’s life, and its influence can be seen writ large across all 7 seasons the show aired.Ĭoffee, my friends, is the third “Gilmore Girl”.įor those dwelling beneath the asthenosphere in the first decade of this century, ‘Gilmore Girls’ was a modestly rated critical darling of a television show. Some of her best bonding moments with her daughter, Rory, happen while drinking coffee at Luke’s Diner. She’s rarely seen without a cup of it in her hand. The first exchange of snappy dialogue from Amy Sherman-Palladino’s cult hit ‘Gilmore Girls’ introduces what Lorelai would openly refer to as one her quirks: an obsession with coffee that knows no earthly bounds. When we first see single mom and ace inn owner/manager Lorelai Gilmore, she’s begging cynical and disgustingly hunky diner owner Luke Danes for the best coffee in town.