H and H Coffee

Dedicated to the history of the Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. founded 1899 in San Antonio, Texas.

Alamo Cook Book cover

Published for Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co., San Antonio, Texas · cover price 50¢

Bibliographic detail

  • Title: Alamo Cook Book
  • Author / compiler: Unknown (no compiler credit on the held copy — to be confirmed on inside front matter)
  • Year: Unknown (no date printed on the booklet)
  • Publisher / imprint: Published for Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co., San Antonio, Texas
  • ISBN: N/A (retail premium booklet, no ISBN)
  • Pagination: TBD — to be confirmed in-hand
  • Cover price: 50¢ (printed in the border of the front cover)
  • Format: Stapled, buff-paper retail recipe booklet

Physical description

Stapled, buff-paper softcover booklet. Front cover carries a black silhouette/view of the Alamo, the title Alamo Cook Book, the publisher line Published for Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co., San Antonio, Texas, and a printed 50¢ price in the border. Back cover is a full advertisement for the H and H Blend line — H and H Blend at 35¢/lb, with a line drawing of a one-pound tin, the tagline Nothing better at any price, and the roaster line repeated. Interior printing in black on the buff-paper stock.

Back cover ad for H and H Blend, 35c one-pound tin line art, "Nothing better at any price," roasted by Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. San Antonio

Provenance

Acquired 24 July 2014 in person at Magic Carpet Books, a used-and-rare San Antonio bookseller; accessioned as HH-BOOK-2014-0004. The shop encounter was opportunistic — the booklet surfaced in H&H-related searches Magic Carpet had on hand.

Why it matters

This is first-party Hoffmann-Hayman company-branded ephemera, not a reprint — a retail premium booklet the company commissioned (or jobbed via a community / civic group) to circulate the brand alongside Alamo iconography. As such it is:

  1. A directly attributable H and H marketing artifact — sits in the company’s paper (vs tin) run alongside the surviving Master Chef and Original Blend tins as a same-period merchandising voice.
  2. A primary-source price anchor for the H and H Blend line — the back-cover ad fixes the brand at 35¢/lb with the tagline Nothing better at any price. The implied period (when 35¢/lb was current pricing) is a dating anchor for related advertising and packaging where dates are absent.
  3. A cross-promotion record between the Hoffmann-Hayman brand and the Alamo / Bexar County civic identity that runs through other H&H advertising of the era — San Antonio newspaper clippings frequently pair the coffee with regional landmarks.

The booklet is the type of retail-premium document Ukers’s Coffee Merchandising (1924) describes as standard 1920s coffee-trade practice, making this artifact a working example of period merchandising theory in H and H’s local context.

Notable contents

  • Front cover: Alamo view + Hoffmann-Hayman imprint + 50¢ price.
  • Back cover: Full H and H Blend advertisement — one-pound tin line drawing, 35¢/lb price, Nothing better at any price tagline, roaster credit.
  • Interior: Recipes (specific recipe inventory to be confirmed in-hand). Whether coffee figures into the recipe text or only the wrapper advertising is an open question that informs whether this is a single-purpose marketing booklet or a genuine community cookbook with sponsor backing.

Open questions

  • Publication year — unknown without a date imprint; the 35¢/lb price anchor may help date by comparison to dated H&H advertising.
  • Compiler / contributing authors — to be confirmed; inside front matter likely names a women’s group, civic organization, or in-house attribution.
  • Print run / edition — likely single, but unverified.

Related: H and H Blend Coffee · Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Company · Coffee Merchandising (Ukers, 1924) · Library · Library — Purchase List