[Piotr] The taste of a Polish childhood

As a Polish persone I could possibly glorify vodka or beer. Some of us drink tea in excessive amounts of tea – as a matter of facte more then citizens of Great Britain. But I want to write about Frugo – because first ten years of my life I have spent living in the block of flats at the Kosmonautów street in Wrocław. 

Frugo came back with jellys. Photo: M. Rymanowski

I was too young to try beer and vodka, and I didn't quite like tea. Not as much as everyone drinking “tchai” in a country wchich recently had overthrown communism for capitalism. My friends and I have tried many beverages, from lemonade to “drink-in-a-bag” – sort of vile “juice” packed in thin, plastic bag.

Of course in the store there was wide selection of apple and orange juices in carton boxes. All of them alike. Until Frugo rolled in. Exactly – Frugo – which was like a good, old pal from the playground. If you didn't know what to say you could always say “Let's Frugo” or something similar. Instead of carton boxes it was sold neatly packed in glass bottles, which you could then turn in in the bottle return facility for couple of groszs. To have for the next one.

Frugo had couple of different tastes. Producer actually named them somehow like “very orange”, but really there were four tastes: orange, black, green and white. No “forest fruits” or “apples” - just like the coulours the drink had. Frugo didn't containt any seeds, or fruity bits – because king voice from the advert got rid of long before it arrived on the shelves in the store. It also had magnificent abilities to bend time and space for the local grocery stores. Thanks to that – bored youngling laying around the block, without an idea of what to do, could actually wait for the shop to arrive and sell them some wonderfully orange drink.

Frugo had also this vibe of “awesomness”. It wasn't milk, so noone said something along the lines with “drink milk and grow strong”. If you drank Frugo you grew “rad” and “awesome” amongst the peers. When the Internet just appeared in Poland and everybody could only use 56k routers it already had some ads made in Flash. No other company had thought of that. They weren't available to see on any page, they were just send from one user to another – another “cool” thing to share.

Frugo is the taste of my childhood. But contrary to my parent's lemonade – I can still enjoy it. I even have a bottle on my desk right now. Empty, but still. I just have to got to the store and buy a new one. Or wait – for some say it will come to my by itself.

Piotr Telichowski from Poland