RFC 2324 introduced the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol.
HTCPCP was published by the Internet Engineering Task Force on 1 April 1998 as an April Fools’ Day parody of internet standards. Larry Masinter wrote the RFC, which imagined a protocol for controlling, monitoring, and diagnosing coffee pots over a network.
The document mimics the language and structure of a serious technical specification while adding deliberately absurd details. It proposes methods such as BREW and WHEN, a coffee-specific URI scheme, and headers for requesting additions such as cream, whisky, or aquavit. Its famous status code 418 means “I’m a teapot,” indicating that a teapot was asked to brew coffee.
A common mix-up is RFC 7168, which did not introduce HTCPCP. Published in 2014, RFC 7168 extended the joke to tea through the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol for Tea Efflux Appliances. RFC 1149 is another April Fools’ RFC, describing transmission of internet protocol datagrams by carrier pigeon, while RFC 2549 adds quality-of-service provisions to that pigeon concept.