To be successful like Starbucks you have to think like a Starbucks. They've created a revolution in the way coffee is perceived in the context of our culture, and in a world where "public space" is vanishing, they provide a nice hang out for everyone who can't get into bars. They're a part of modern life, along with laptops and cell phones. The way the get you to pay $6 for a cup of coffee, milk and cocoa powder is genius. I do it, you probably do it, and we secretly LOVE to pay that much. Let's face it, you could make this stuff yourself (if you don't mind doing without steamed milk) but you don't because damnit, you've earned an expensive hot frothy, sugary.... ahhhhh (in Homer Simpson voice).

I noticed whenever I ask my boss if he wants anything from the bagel shop he jumps up and excitedly asks for a latte; he asks in such a way that I wonder if he knows what a latte even is (he asks for it in an excited way as if he's asking for a hot fudge sundae with five scoops of ice cream). I needed to find out what a latte was so I could quietly judge him for his newfound passion. According to the Heine Brothers, the difference between a latte and a cappucino is purely in the "foam" of the milk and the amount thereof; i.e. where it is in relation to the espresso in question. A cappuccino is supposed to have foam at the top; a thick carpet of foam so that you can't see the espresso and steamed milk below. The foam blanket makes it very difficult to "sip" the underlying liquid and the result, invariably, is you keep tipping the cup up, thinking "where is it?" then, wham, the liquid bursts forth onto your sensitive upper lip. Luckily the foam is there to comfort and console the burn. So you have a burnt lip with milk foam on it. Whose idea of a good time is that? The Italians, of course!

Americans don't do that. An "Americano" is espresso and water, good old fashioned no nonsense water.  But if you take the time to study the price board at old SBUX, you'll notice that an Americano is not much different in price from a regular coffee. An espresso shot straight up is even cheaper. So for that $6 latte, what you are paying for, in the long run, is a bunch of steamed milk! Sacre bleu! Oh wait, that's French.

The thing about Starbucks is, they allow the savvy to sidestep the price; with a little effort. Go ahead and order an espresso, ask for it in a regular size cup, then sneak around the other side and ask the barrista for some steamed milk. See what happens. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Maybe this makes you feel like you're cheating, but I don't think anyone really cares, not in the long run. What you have when you've got the steamed milk and coffee all mixed together is a latte or a "headless cappucino" for the price of an espresso. Now if you just love steamed milk and want to add some to your regular drip coffee, that turns into a "cafe au lait." And if you're just adding a little steamed milk to the espresso, that's a macchiato. Of course, there's also a difference between cream and milk -- whipped cream or cream foam is a big part of the cappucino and macchiato side of the equation. Are you confused? I'm not explaining it very well! Still, I'm satisfied enough to judge my boss, who would never settle for a headless cappuccino or a macchiato or an Africano, if, say, I told him there were no lattes where I was going, only cappuccinos. 

But moving on, what about the "gingerbread" latte? You can't make that at home, right? What about the "vanilla coffee" which I ordered once accidentally (I tend to mumble a lot in Starbucks, it's because if I'm there I need coffee!) and ended up getting all the time for like three months.  What about the peppermint coffee? My dear Italian friend Orion (he's a rock star, so it's only Orion) gets a peppermint shot in his coffee. When I first saw this, I was like "Ah-hah! That's how they do it; it's syrup!"

Here's a little back story to the saga I call Starbucks and Me: A Love Story.

I lived in Seattle back at the turn of the 1990s, a time when, if memory serves, Starbucks consisted of a handful of coffee stands that served mainly Italian-syrup flavored coffee. I noticed that the coffee-addicted Seattle-ites adored these Italian syrups. They were everywhere; video stores, movie theaters, gas stations, Laundromats, hairdressers. Want a raspberry latte with your movie? No, damn you! I am from New York, we like things to be bitter. They didn't like me much there, and I was glad to leave truth be told. They were snobby to New Yorkers. I left. Then grunge happened and by the time Microsoft descended from the hills a few years later, ravenous and flushed with cash, to conquer the city, the last few vestiges of secularism were already fading, and Starbucks, as if in a quid pro quo was invading the rest of America at a full head of milk steam. 

Enough history lesson and back to the flavored coffee analogy which I will now finish by saying  flavored syrup is just sugar and some flavoring.  So if you have a spice rack at home or do any baking you're halfway to making a wealth of groovy flavored coffees and mochas right at home. Syrups are also all over the web, such as at Koobies, as are recipes to make your own.

Now, I love me some hot chocolate, especially the dark, unsweetened, hardcore kind, like Dagoba's  hot cocoa mix. Now regardless of what the Dagoboans claim, that stuff doesn't mix right, not without a blender (which I am going to get real soon, I swear), so to spare my bruised ego the offensive lumps, I just pour a big dash into the bottom of my French press along with my evening coffee. Voila! An unsweetened mocha. If I want sugar, I just freakin' add it, via my stolen sugar packets from -- I won't tell you where. Hell, Starbucks even leaves a big shaker of cocoa out on the table for anyone who wants to mocha-ize their drink. What do you think their mocha syrup is? It's sugar and cocoa powder, that and if anything else, its stuff better not named... secret stuff, made in Pacific Northwest laboratories.

For a vanilla coffee -- rummage amongst your baking supplies for some vanilla extract. Add just the tinest drop, mind you (and this is only for those non-in-recovery alcoholics out there) and presto! (Note, I've never tried this, but it sounds like it should work, doesn't it?)

Now steaming your own milk can be a bother, but a nifty idea is to just heat up some milk on the stove until it's steaming (not boiling) and then add it to your home brewed espresso (it becomes different drinks as the ratio of milk to coffee changes) or regular coffee (cafe au lait) And that brings me to the dark and stormy secret of the popularity of these beverages… in heating up milk there's a chemical reaction that results in the release of a huge amount of tryptophan. That's why grandmas the world over keep urging you to have a cup of warm milk if you can't sleep. The stuff is more potent than valium, if I may exaggerate wildly. What could be a better tonic to a stressed out caffeine junky than to have their fix backed up by a soul soothing bath of steamy white tranquilizers? Six dollars is nothing, man. 

End Note: In all fairness, there's quite a bit of medico pooh-poohing over the tryptopahn content hypothesis, as in this article in Psychology Today but personally I trust grandma more than a bunch of psychiatrists. Call me crazy!