I have had a long-term love affair with coffee. It started way back when when I was permitted one cup a week, and it was not for sipping; after his night shift, my dad would often bring home a dozen donuts–you know, the boxed kind with chocolate, coconut, and powdered sugar–and we were allowed to only dunk, not drink. It was only a matter of time until I took my first real taste, and we’ve been pretty inseparable ever since.
I am pretty non-discriminatory when it comes to my coffee drinks as well as the shops that serve them. I am always willing to try most anything once, and I am always game for a new goodies. That willingness to experiment has generated a pretty eclectic list of my favorite coffee shop beverages ever.
The top five? Here we go:
1. Cabin Bar Mocha at Caribou: I love butterscotch. LOVE. This was all things butterscotchy and chocolately, and it was awesome (the best part? It came with a little scotcharoo bar that was cutely called a “Cabin Bar” on top). I miss this drink so much!
2. London Fog at Starbucks: This is not coffee, no, but rather a tea drink (how scandalous–tea at a coffee shop!). It is earl grey tea steeped in steamed milk with a couple pumps of vanilla. It is so awesome, it may as well be coffee.
3. Snowstorm Mocha at Northern Shores Coffee Shop: I cannot even begin to fathom the gallons of these I drank while at UMD. This drink–a white chocolate mocha sprinkled with toasted coconut–paired so nicely with the lemon poppyseed muffin. Any extra financial aid I had left over was spent on these tasties, no doubt.
4. Vanilla Steamed Nirvana at Dunn Brothers: Dunn Bros has this delicious Infinite Black Cold Press, which they add with vanilla flavoring and half + half for their Vanilla Iced Nirvana. Just as nice is ditching the ice and steaming it. So good, like yoga in a cup; you may just find yourself saying “om” more often than “yum.”
5. Iced Coffee at DQ: For one summer only, DQ had perhaps the best iced coffee I had ever had. It wasn’t too sweet, it wasn’t too bold; it was just like a really great cup of hot coffee, but cold. If anyone from DQ corporate has stopped by the blog today, PLEASE BRING IT BACK!! THE MOOLATTE IS NOT ENOUGH!!!
Of all the beverages I have sipped or gulped, these are the whipped cream of the crop, the foam at the top. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have room for more…what is your absolute favorite that I just need to try?
