Drink More Coffee!

So I thought about proving how coffee is better than tea health-wise or something, but apparently, they're about equally beneficial.

If you're looking to add to your list of reasons to drink coffee, this guy gives some other possible benefits of coffee, like providing antioxidants, making you smarter, helping you burn fat, decrease your risk of liver problems, diabetes, and Alzheimer's. (I have to disagree with his "lower your risk of death" point since I'm pretty sure that there isn't anything humanly we can do to lower our risk of dying.)

So instead, I thought it'd be fun to just pick several of the coffee "types," tell a little bit about each, and Starbucks gives some nutrition facts and fun facts under each category.

1) Espresso is the base for all other coffee drinks. It's a higher concentration of coffee and has more caffeine per unit volume, so it's served in a smaller "shot-glass" sized coffee mug.

2) Caffè macchiato is just one step up from espresso because it just adds a little bit of milk and foam on top. The name literally means "espresso stained/marked with milk." Try a Caramel or Hazelnut Macchiato (hot or cold.)

3) Lattes or caffellatte (in Italian) which means "milk coffee" because it's a mixture of coffee and steamed milk. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of lattes is, of course, Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte. Need I say more? Lattes are probably my favorite coffee drink, especially when "over-ice" or chilled (crushed up ice). Oh, and since Starbucks is about to move on to other holiday drinks, here's a way to keep that pumpkin spice going year-round. aka-diy! (Let me know if it's any good.)


4) Cappuccino  Cappuccinos and lattes are sort of opposites of each other. While lattes have the lots of steamed milk and then a little bit of milk foam on top of the espresso base, cappuccinos have a little bit of steamed milk with lots of milk foam.

5)  Moccaccino or Caffè Mocha is also made of espresso and steamed milk, but it adds some chocolate to the mix. If you want a mocha, the Salted Caramel Mocha at Starbucks are the way to go.

6) Americano or Caffè Americano is "American coffee." It's basically hot water added to espresso and is mainly used when one wants a normal size coffee drink from an espresso bar.

Of course, there are other types of coffee drinks, but these are just a small sketch of some of the more popular ones.

If coffee is just simply coffee to you and all these fancy Italian names are just confusing, this picture helps show the proportions of coffee, milk, water, etc. for the different types of coffee drinks.