From Concept to Cup: Creating Funky Monkey
From Marissa's kitchen to All Three Tala cafés, Learn how the Funky Monkey came to life.
You may know her as the icon of the summer, but to me she’s just a casual Tuesday morning latte. The coveted Funky Monkey, our banana bread-inspired latte, was whipped up in my own kitchen years before she ever entered the seasonal menu chat.
As silly as it sounds, this syrup was born out of a desire to cut down on food waste in my home. One spring afternoon, I made it my mission to use up every forgotten fruit and vegetable lurking in my fridge and on my counter. The goal was simple: give them a second life instead of letting them end up in the trash by the end of the week.
When I got to the browning bananas sitting above my fridge, clearly on their last leg, I paused. The obvious answer was banana bread. But I just wasn't craving yet another baked good. Then it hit me: what if I could capture the essence of banana bread without actually making banana bread?
As a coffee and matcha lover, I immediately got excited at the thought of creating a new syrup for my drinks (and, of course, surprising my husband with whatever I came up with). I grabbed a well-loved banana bread recipe from my cabinet and started adding the familiar ingredients to a pot—leaving out the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Brown sugar was a must; I wanted warmth and richness. Then came sliced bananas, left to slowly simmer in the syrup.
It took a few tries to get it right. Pull the bananas out too early, and the syrup lacks the bold banana flavor I was after. Leave them in too long, though, and they start soaking the syrup right back up. It was a balancing act that required a little trial and error and a lot of taste-testing.
My husband loves to tease me about my complete disregard for measuring cups. I tend to just throw things in until they feel right. Honestly, I get it from my late grandma, who cooked the exact same way. It's a wonderful way to create, but not exactly ideal when you're trying to recreate something later. If I'm being honest, I wasn't all that confident this syrup would work. It was really just a last-ditch effort to make those overripe bananas count for something.
Then I took my first sip. It was delicious. It also burned my tongue.
From that day on, banana bread syrup became a permanent resident in my fridge, ready for my midday matcha or morning latte. Years later, I brought it to the Tala team, and suddenly it became the Funky Monkey on our Libertyville Summer Menu '25.
Watching something that started as an experiment to rescue a couple of forgotten bananas become one of our most-loved seasonal drinks has been incredibly rewarding. Every time someone orders a Funky Monkey, I can't help but smile knowing it all started with a handful of overripe bananas, a pot on my stove, and a refusal to let good food go to waste.
Marissa Cummings
On staff at our Libertyville café, Marissa loves befriending customers and making the perfect cup of coffee. When not behind the bar, she is usually exploring new coffee shops, curled up with a good mystery book and a warm miel in hand.