By: Shayna Nicolay
The rainbow latte trend is now creating drinks based off health benefits rather than Instagram aesthetics. Rainbow lattes used to only consist of espresso and food dye. They have now expanded to using healthier options of colouring the steamed milk through charcoal, turmeric, matcha and beetroot powders. Unlike regular lattes, most of the new rainbow drinks don’t contain espresso or any other form of caffeine.
Activated Charcoal
Charcoal food and drinks have gone viral over the last couple of years, so why not create a charcoal latte? Dumo G, a barista at The Black Canary Espresso Bar, created a charcoal latte based off of the film Black Panther. All of The Black Canary Espresso Bar’s flavoured lattes are based off of comic book characters. After the Black Panther film came out, G decided to start to play with different kinds of ingredients. She created a drink that consists of activated charcoal, two shots of espresso with coconut flavour and steamed milk in an 8 oz. cup.
“It in itself has medicinal and superpower healing abilities,” said G. “I feel like the drink creates its own superhero aspect.”
Her charcoal latte ended up being the highest grossing themed drink at The Black Canary Espresso Bar. G says that people started to order the drink regularly because of the aesthetic attached to it. As the hype of the movie went down she noticed people would order it because they weren’t feeling well.
“You can make anything hype because it’s cool but this has a purpose,” said G.
Green Matcha and Food Dye
One of the more popular superfood rainbow lattes is the matcha tea latte. This drink gets it’s green colouring from matcha powder. According to Christian Brew, a barista at Page One Cafe, a lot of people in Japan use matcha tea in ceremonial events. The tea they use consists of matcha powder and hot water. A matcha latte is similar to this, but instead of filling the whole cup with water, you would only add enough to make a matcha solution. Then the cup is filled to the brim with steamed milk.
Brew says that if people are ordering a drink that’s unsweetened, like their matcha or turmeric lattes, they are doing it for their health and not the aesthetics. The drinks that are ordered purely for aesthetics and Instagram pictures are the food dye rainbow lattes. These lattes have no health benefits. The only thing that sets them apart from regular lattes is the food dye added to the steamed milk.
Turmeric and Beetroot
A newer addition to the superfood rainbow drinks are the turmeric and the beetroot lattes. At Good Earth Coffeehouse, these lattes are made using powders mixed with ginger and coconut sugar. Both of the decaf lattes were brought in for the fall season. One of the owners, G Noorani says that their customers aren’t buying the lattes because of their colour.
“Usually it’s the people that know what the lattes are,” said Noorani. “They know it’s good for their health and it’s winter time so they realize their body probably needs it.”
G Noorani’s husband, Amyn Noorani, says that about 30 per cent of their customers which equals around 45 people per day, come in for a turmeric or beetroot latte.
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