Pour Yourself a Cup of Ambition!
Folks across the globe have been listening to Dolly Parton sing about her “cup of ambition” since 1980. Now, Tennessee’s favorite 9-to-5 anthem comes with an actual caffeine kick, three roasts, and a whole lot of Dolly behind it.
The new Cup of Ambition coffee line, created in partnership with family-owned Community Coffee, takes its name straight from Parton’s “9 to 5.” According to the brand’s launch announcement, the idea has been percolating considerably longer than the coffee itself. Parton had been thinking about creating a coffee brand for more than 40 years.
From Tennessee to the Coffee Pot
The lineup keeps the morning decision-making manageable. Cup of Ambition comes in Light, Medium, and Dark Roast, with ground coffee for the scoop-and-brew crowd and K-Cup pods for anyone whose pre-coffee patience tops out at pressing a button.
Before making its way to coffee drinkers nationwide, Cup of Ambition debuted close to home at Dolly’s Tennessean Travel Stop. The coffee is now available online through Cup of Ambition and Community Coffee, along with major retailers, taking a Tennessee-born idea well beyond the state line.
The partnership is a natural fit for Parton, whose business ventures have long kept one boot planted firmly in her home state. Even the name feels unmistakably hers. Few people could pull a lyric from a 46-year-old song and make it sound perfectly reasonable on a bag of coffee.
A Cup With a Cause
There’s another familiar Dolly touch built into the brand. Cup of Ambition supports Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, the book-gifting program that provides books to children from birth to age five. That connection gives the morning coffee run a direct line back to one of Parton’s best-known literacy efforts.
For Tennesseans, Cup of Ambition is a particularly fitting addition to the Dolly universe: dreamed up decades ago, launched at home, and tied to a program that puts books into little hands. Turns out “9 to 5” had the morning beverage figured out all along.
Find another cup worth tumbling out of bed and stumbling to the kitchen for at https://www.guidetotennessee.com/coffeehouses!
