Bye Bye, 2024!

Well, wasn’t 2024 another whirlwind year?! It may have flown by, but soooo much has happened! Amongst all the noise there were some amazing events that deserve some serious airplay. Lets celebrate the things that went right in 2024!

WORLD EVENTS: Prince Fredrick X and Princess Mary, born and raised in our very own Tasmania, (where Melissa was also born and raised, and Martin and Melissa met them when they worked in marketing and PR in Tasmania), rang in the new year by being crowned King and Queen of Demark after the abdication of Queen Margrethe II after 50+ years. Mention about Melissa and Martin’s connection and meeting them.

SPORT: The Australian Tennis Open served up exciting matches, keeping spectators on the edge of their seats and saw Aussies Matthew Ebden and Alex de Minaur sharing the coveted Newcombe Medal.

SCIENCE: Elon Musk’s company Neuralink successfully implanted a ‘brain-reading’ device into a quadriplegic man for the first time in January and by March the trial patient was recorded playing chess online via the brain implant.

HISTORY: The oldest Stone Age megastructure, 11,000 years old, was found submerged off the coast of Germany; a previously undiscovered ancient city in Ecuador’s Amazon was unearthed; and a large Mayan city was accidentally rediscovered in Mexico thanks to a Lidar laser survey (ground penetrating thermal scans).

TECHNOLOGY: Cars with no rear window?! Polestar, a Swedish car manufacturer, introduced the Polestar 4 in February, the first electric mass-market SUV coupé with a rear-mounted camera instead of a rear-view mirror. Just think – no more blind spots from the tall passenger in the back seat or the overloaded luggage in the boot!

SCIENCE: Are aliens coming to Earth? Well, the US city of Lexington (Kentucky) rolled out the welcome mat in January with a new tourism campaign aimed at extraterrestrial travellers, beaming an intergalactic invitation into space via an infrared laser. Check out video of the ad here. Maybe it’ll reach the enterprise, so Spock knows he can get his chai latte with oat milk on Earth too.

Sourced from YT/@paramountplusglobal

Interestingly, in November, there was a US congressional hearing with ‘eye witnesses’ from the US military and Government departments about UAP’s (formerly UFO’s) and released declassified documents. Could they have been onto something? 

FUN FACTS: What unique way can we celebrate the baguette? Suggestions, anyone? French Post Office La Poste issued a scratch-and-sniff stamp in May that smells of bread. We imagine most of those were kept, not used! Note to self – we need a scratch and sniff Bondi Chai stamp (do people still use stamps)?

HISTORY: The construction of the Egyptian Pyramids is one of the most enduring mysteries in the world, but it seems we’re a step closer to cracking the case. In May, Scientists announced they had discovered evidence of a long-lost branch of the Nile that once ran near many of Egypt's pyramids, but has long since dried up. It makes much more sense that the limestone and granite blocks were sailed up to the worksite than dragged across the hot desert. It also begs the question of whether there are long-since dried-up rivers that would have run near the world's other mysterious pyramids in South and Middle America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Reposted from eos.org

MEDICINE: The medical world continued to make leaps and strides in June with a landmark trial of HIV prevention antiviral drug Lenacapavir among African women. The results were staggering with data reflecting 100% HIV prevention. The continued fight against malaria also saw the World Health Organisation (WHO) declare Egypt and the sub-Saharan island nation of Cape Verde malaria-free.

HISTORY: June saw the world's oldest white wine discovered inside a 1st century CE Roman funeral urn in a mausoleum in Carmona, Spain. The wine was mixed with a man's ashes, so we don’t think there will be any taste-testing to see if it aged well...

SPORT: The XXXIII Summer Olympic Games officially opened in Paris in July, the first time along the River Seine with 85 boats carrying the athletes, and performances by Lady Gaga and Celine Dion. Our Olympians took home a considerable amount of gold, silver and bronze for their efforts in Paris, across a wide range of land and water sports. It looks like Brisbane is going to follow the lead made in Paris and hold swimming events in the Brisbane river?

Reposted from espn.com.au -  Francois Nel/Getty Images

"Jess Fox celebrates with her 2024 Olympic K1 gold medal."

ENTERTAINMENT: Actor and comedian Dick Van Dyke becomes the oldest winner of a Daytime Emmy at 98.

BONDI CHAI: We launched our new small white mugs for cafes in August and to date we have now made over 46,000 Bondi Chai mugs. Where are they all hiding? Have you seen them at your favourite café? How many do you have in your cupboard?

FUN FACTS: It was a year for making money at auction! Mr Darcy’s (Colin Firth) very memorably wet shirt from the 1995 BBC-TV adaption of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" sold for £25,000 (US$32,000); and the Ruby Slippers from “The Wizard of Oz”, worn by Judy Garland, sold for US$28 million.

SPORT: US Open Tennis history was made in August with the longest match on record (5 hours, 35 minutes) that saw Britain's Daniel Evans beat Russia's Karen Khachanov.

FUN FACTS: Collins Dictionary names "brat" as its word of the year for 2024.

BONDI CHAI: Did you see we won another Award?! Bondi Chai was awarded the Bronze International Stevie Marketing Award for our Community Engagement project The Faces of Bondi Chai in August.

TRANSPORT: Sydney opened a new multi-billion-dollar metro line between Chatswood and Sydenham in August - city's biggest transport change since the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

TECHNOLOGY: In possibly the most progressive move of the Catholic church to date, Peter’s Chapel in Lucerne, Switzerland, installed an AI Jesus in its confessional in August for a two-month experiment to see how well received it would be by the congregation. The experiment was, predictably, met with mixed reviews by the populace.

BONDI CHAI: European love for Bondi Chai grows every year and 2024 was no exception. This year we delivered 2 full container loads of Bondi! That’s 18 tonne, or 1.8 million cups of chai latte, for context. That’s A LOT of chai!

FUN FACT: New Zealand broke the world record for the largest Haka in September with 6,531 people performing "Ka Mate" at Eden Park, Auckland.

TECHNOLOGY: The world's first wooden satellite, developed by Kyoto University and Japan, was launched in November from the Kennedy Space Centre in a bid to combat the ever-growing space-junk problem caused by our exploration of outer space. Also working to address a similar problem, but here on Earth, is SpaceX’s newly developed mechanical arms that ‘caught’ the discarded rocket booster of the unmanned Starship launch.

BONDI CHAI: Company owners Martin and Melissa visited Taiwan in November where Bondi Chai was officially launched in Taipei with All Day Roasting Company. Appropriately, their theme for the event was ‘ALL DAY BONDI CHAI’ and their messaging reflected the Truman Show’s famous line ‘Good morning. And, in case I don’t see you, Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Good Night’.

TECHNOLOGY: In November, Australia became the first country to pass legislation banning children under 16-years-old from having a social media account, following a January US congressional hearing holding multiple social media platforms responsible for not doing enough to protect children online. Previously, the minimum age was 13.

WORLD EVENTS: A newly restored Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, re-opened after the 2019 fire that destroyed the roof, spire and much of the upper walls.

FUN FACTS: Pantone announced the 2025 colour of the year to be 'Mocha Mousse 17-1023'. What was 2024’s? Peach Fuzz 13-1023. Maybe 2026 can be Chai Latte - Dulux has already adopted it as a paint colour!

Reposted from IG/@pantone

And... that's a wrap for the year from the team at Bondi Chai! What were your highlights in 2024? We'd love to hear about them in the comments below.