Some coffee shops in Canada have people perking up — and it’s not because of all the caffeine.
Barista Magazine first reported that Kicking Horse Coffee, a roastery and café in British Columbia, Canada, posted a call to action to other coffee shops on Instagram Feb. 6 regarding Americanos, the popular café staple made by pouring hot water over espresso.
“For 16 years, the Kicking Horse Café has been quietly calling Americanos ‘Canadianos,’” read the now-deleted post. “Today, we’re officially making it a thing and asking coffee shops across the country to make the switch. Join us. Call them Canadianos.”
Kicking Horse Coffee did not immediately respond to TODAY.com’s request for comment.
The post comes amid President Donald Trump’s proposed 25% tariffs on goods imported from Canada and Mexico, which would go into effect March 4. The commander in chief has also stated that he wants Canada to become the 51st state — an idea most Canadians have opposed.
Kicking Horse’s symbolic renaming of the drink that originated during World War II to appease American soldiers stationed in Italy has caught on at other coffee shops across Canada.
“I was worried that we were going to maybe attract the wrong clientele, people who were going to get very offended,” William Oliveira, owner of Cafe Belém in Toronto, tells TODAY.com.
Oliveira says news of the tariffs was fresh on people’s minds when he quietly changed the name on his menu a little over two weeks ago.
“A lot of people were very gung-ho about it, standing up for being a Canadian at this time,” he says, adding that the response from his customers has been mostly positive and that the prevailing mood is that Canadians don’t want to “let people believe that we’re people that can just be pushed around.”
Palisades Cafe in British Columbia has also followed suit, and its owner says that Trump’s policies had the effect of unifying the country.
“There are aspects of what Trump is doing that have done Canada a service in bringing unity,” Elizabeth Watson tells TODAY.com.
Watson says the name change stirred up a lot of discussion within the café — something she wasn’t anticipating initially. She thinks that’s a net positive.
“I just love our push on Canadian pride right now, which I think is great regardless of what’s going on globally,” she says.
It’s not just Watson's and Oliviera’s shops: Morning Owl in Ottawa, Le Petit Pain in Toronto and more have followed suit.
The symbolic name change calls to mind when some American restaurant owners changed “french fries” to “freedom fries” on their menus to protest France’s opposition to the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq.
As another example of this phenomenon: During World War I and later due to anti-German sentiment in the 1920s, sauerkraut was marketed in the States as “liberty cabbage.”
Oliviera says that, should the tariffs go into effect, the consequences are going to be “traumatic and severe.”
“I was having a conversation with someone who was asking me, ‘What kind of things do you import from the U.S. that are going to be affected by this?’ and my response was, ‘Quite simply, it doesn’t really matter.’
“When so many industries and so many people are going to be affected in so many ways, it doesn’t matter if I import something directly from the U.S. or not — I’m going to be affected.”
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