Coffee by the bucket is the summer’s wildest caffeine trend

A Trenta Starbucks is no longer cutting it. The latest coffee trend has people ordering their iced lattes by the bucket. 

Earlier this year, independent coffee shops started going viral on TikTok for serving 34-ounce iced lattes in plastic buckets. “POV: You live in the same era as coffee buckets,” one coffee shop posted on TikTok. “Ok well see you soon I guess,” one person commented. “I’d be on the toilet for days,” another wrote. 

While it’s unclear where the trend originated, coffee shops in Colorado, Ohio, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have since begun offering their own versions of the quadruple-shot beverage. The New York Times spoke to Dulce Vida, a Mexican-inspired coffee shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a “La Cubeta,” priced at $14 with add-ons, now accounts for more than 30% of orders since it debuted last month. 

TJ’s Burritos, a Connecticut-based casual coffeehouse and Mexican restaurant, started serving coffee by the bucket in late May; it sold out during the first weekend. Now TJ’s Burritos sells at least 1,000 buckets per week (sometimes 200 buckets per day!), owner Tricia Martin told CT Insider. 

Alaina Roberto, owner of Monroe’s Last Drop Coffee Shop, dropped her version of the viral coffee bucket in late June. “It seems like it’s a thing right now,” Roberto told CT Insider. “It’s a bucket summer.”

Of course, like everything else, coffee trends come and go. Earlier this year, cloud coffee (a twist on an Americano made with coconut water) had its viral moment. Then who could forget the dalgona coffee trend that had TikTok in a choke hold back in 2020. 

While the novelty of drinking your morning cup of coffee from a plastic bucket is likely driving the trend, Snaxshot’s Andrea Hernández suggests it may be reflective of a broader shift in attitudes toward caffeine. “We’re kind of experiencing that sort of backlash from what we were trying to do, like, less caffeine, more mindfulness, more meditation, less palpitations,” she told The Times. 

Rather than paying attention to wellness gurus who claim coffee first thing in the morning disrupts cortisol levels, or giving in to Big Matcha, the pendulum has swung back to mainlining caffeine by the bucketload.   

Also, considering a regular-size oat cap is pushing $10 with tip, $12 for 34 ounces of latte is arguably a great deal. 

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