Pokka's a curiously thin mixture — very sweet and with a sharply herbal aftertaste, and not in a breath-freshening way. (Is coffee ever?)

No matter: the can's pen-and-ink art is the magical time machine of that creature I call The Youth. As I drank, I idly googled Pokka's history of the can's graphics. 1972 is an orgiastic charcoaled haze of dancing teens: a year later, we get The Youth foregrounded, lips slightly parted and mane tossed like he's peaking at a Floyd concert.

But — oh, adulthood! The day job! — with each decade the pencilled haze dissipates into sober pen art. The Youth's hair gets shorter. And you realize... that's why he's drinking coffee. He's the designated driver! And don't you know, he wants to leave now, because he's got work in the morning. Those other kids in the background are laughing at your lame ass, Youth.

Damn, when did you become such a tool?

But wait! In his latest incarnation, The Youth... he's... he's starting to grow his hair back!

Right on, Youth! It'll be just like old times, man!

Paul Collins is most recently the author of The Trouble With Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine, and blogs at Weekend Stubble. He drank half his can hot and half of it cold, thus voiding his Pokka warranty.

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