Cream, Sugar, and Salt?

I can say with great certainty that I never ever thought I would have salt in my coffee. And I can say now with certainty that I never ever WANT to have salt in my coffee.

There has been a new flavor trend flooding the market recently, and that is salted caramel or salted mocha.

It started with toffees:

Which led to cupcakes:

And certainly enough it ended up inserting itself into a cup of coffee:

I have had friends say, “Samantha give it a try and blog about it,” and my response has always been EW!

But last Friday was Veteran’s Day, and since I live in D.C. everyone had the day off, except for me because I  work for dirty corporate lobbyists. (Disclaimer: I say that with the utmost sense of sarcasm because for all those who know me – and for all those who don’t, oh boy are you missing out – I have spent my last three years researching the ethical behavior of corporate lobbyists and loathe the negative connotation that is attached to the profession. Feel free to engage me in a conversation if you wish to learn more.) And now back to the story. I was at work on Friday with butt-loads to do and my boss offered to pick me up a cup of coffee from the nearby Starbucks – very sweet of her to offer. I said a small latte would be wonderful. She came back and handed me my cup o’ jo and it smelt a liiitttllle bit funky. It turns out she ordered one of those fancy new salted drinks, a salted caramel latte, and the barista made two of those instead of one plain milk and espresso. I was tempted to hand it off, but, since so many of my loyal blog followers have asked for it, I figured now is a better time than any to try out this salted caffeinated obsession. Here is what I thought:

The taste, although I almost don’t even want to admit it, wasn’t half bad. I can at least understand why people might enjoy the drink. Though, for me, just the thought of all that salt in a coffee cup is enough to give me a heart attack, never mind consuming the thing itself. But I am trying to be fair, and the initial taste didn’t want to make me puke as much as I thought it would. As I continued to drink, reluctantly, (but I am doing this for you *cough* Zack Schwartz) I liked it less, and less, and less. Mostly because the more I drank the dryer my moth would become. Soon I felt like a fish out of water.

It was rather unpleasant.