To serve Tang for breakfast instead of orange juice was to say you were riding high on the wave of progress.To understand Tang's appeal some thirty years ago, it is necessary to remember that most Americans, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, put their faith in the march of progress. Introduced by General Foods in 1959 as a "breakfast beverage" made by mixing water with a spoonful of what the manufacturer called "aromatic, orangy-tasting powder," (loaded with vitamins A and C, as well as tricalcium phosphate), pleasant smelling ("like oranges, but with a flavor all its own"), long-lasting in its jar on the shelf, and, most wonderful of all, modern. "SPACE-TANG CONTINUUM ONE GIANT LEAP," JNews & Record (Greensboro, NC), J(p. And Tang is still used regularly in space. Plastic containers have replaced the old glass jars. Still, Redmond said, "Tang has its dedicated users." It's also now available in mango flavor and sugar-free orange. She attributed that mainly to changes in consumer tastes and the availability of other drinks. "Its sales are not now what they were then," said Nancy Redmond, a spokeswoman for Kraft General Foods. Once widely popular, Tang is no longer the major player it once was. Later commercials and ad promotions - from moon maps sent to thousands of schools to lunar module replicas on 18-ounce Tang jars - would reinforce the Tang-Space connection for years. "Tang Takes Off" bleats a 1965 General Foods newsletter that describes the elaborate efforts to craft commercials tied to the Gemini flights. But the Vitamin C-filled drink is indelibly tied with outer space, largely because it has been used by astronauts since the Gemini flights of 1965 - and because of advertising. It was developed by General Foods in 1957, 12 years before man would set foot on the lunar surface. "For the record, the drink's origin had nothing to do with the space program. Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. The General Foods dubbed it "the drink of the astronauts," and the new Tang, with a prominent picutre of a launch pad on the outside of the canister, soon was rocketing upward in sales and consumption.At the peak of popularity of Tang in the 1960s and 1970s, American households consumed the "instant breakfast" on a regular basis." By the first Gemini flight in 1965, Tang has been languishing on supermarket shelves for six years. When water was added, the pouches yielded a sweet, slightly tangy orange-flavored drink that provided the entire day's worth of Vitamin C. The mix was delivered to the astronauts in silver pouches. It is one of America's most celebrated chemically created foods.Tang went to space on the Gemini and Apollo missions. "Tang, made by General Foods, is a sweetened drink powder artificially colored and flavored orange. In 1965 the Gemini astronauts took this drink into outer space. It was, however, the space program that made Tang a household name. It was invented as a modern breakfast beverage, not commissioned by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office registration #1974439) and introduced to the American public in 1959.
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