I remember several years, I finally got curious about what Sanka was. I heard it all the time on older TV shows where someone would ask for coffee and someone else would respond with "Is Sanka okay?" and just always assumed it was some kind of decaffeinated coffee. So I looked it up and learned that non-caffeinated coffee was invented in Germany where it was called Kaffee HAG (Handels-Aktien-Gesellschafft). It got the name Sanka when introduced in France. Sanka is short for "sans caffeine."
One of the major selling points Sanka used was that it was a coffee you could drink at night. Probably because you'd drink it, realize that it's not the same as coffee with caffeine and then crawl into bed sad and depressed.
