Nobody Needs a Venti Latte

Ask yourself: What do I really need in life?

When did we become infants, drinking lots of milk with our daily coffee? When we were asked to. Photo by Demi DeHerrera on Unsplash.

Venti means twenty in Italian and represents 10 percent espresso and 90 percent milk. Now, no adult needs to drink 18 ounce of milk every day (Edit: Yet we spend 15 minutes and five dollars every morning for the questionable privilege). But most of us need caffeine to artificially energize ourselves to stay awake at work.

Coincidentally, coffee became popular in Europe during the industrial revolution to make people stop drinking alcohol daytime, which was the most popular daily drink. The rational was simple: It was okay to be a few sheets to the wind when plowing the fields but when working with machines in a factory that behavior could be fatal to the bottom line. More in Michael Pollan’s book “This is Your Mind on Plants.”