Summer Drink Menu 2023
With the change of each season comes the change in our seasonal drink menu. Designing genuinely delicious seasonal drinks has become a big part of what makes Tala what it is, which is why we’re so excited to share our new lineup each season.
Stefan in our cupping room with his final versions of syrups for the summer drink launch.
When we first launched the company, we knew that we wanted to take specialty and seasonal drinks seriously. Most people in our industry act too high-and-mighty to get down with a sugary coffee drink. We always felt weird about that huge quality gap between a black coffee and an iced vanilla latte. In most shops, there was so much attention given to pulling a beautiful shot of espresso, only to pair it with a generic run-of-the-mill syrup filled with questionable ingredients. It just seemed odd. That’s why—from the beginning—we knew we wanted to take our specialty drinks seriously.
Back when we first launched Tala, I was in charge of making all of our in-house syrups. That meant that long before opening our doors, I was adjusting sugar-to-water ratios and trying to figure out how to make syrups for our mainstay drinks. Our drink ideas often began with a few thoughts about flavors and input from everyone, and then I would draft sample syrup for the team to try and then we’d go back and forth until it was perfect. A lot has changed since those early days. Now Stefan almost single-handedly crafts all the syrup recipes before handing them off to our capable production team to make in bulk—shout out to Marcus and Martha crushing the syrup game! Although the process has changed since the beginning, our intentionality and creativity hasn’t. We love the opportunity to come up with fun new ideas, and to perfect old ones.
This summer, are welcoming back some fan-favorites from past seasons, returning to an old goodie with a slight twist and keeping one of our current spring drinks on for the summer. Almost every drink we make comes with some kind of history, and sometimes a funny story or failed trials along with it. As we launch this menu, I’m taking this opportunity to share a bit of background on some of these drinks you’ve grown to love!
The Butterfly Effect
A small idea lead to a chain of events that created this delicious and beautiful looking drink. It’s fizzy, sweet, zingy and made with espresso, juiced ginger, agave syrup, coconut milk, and Butterfly Pea Powder served cold. Maybe by simply drinking one it will lead to a big impact on the future. Who knows?
The Butterfly Effect is a returning drink from last summer—and the summer before that, too! This gingery concoction is the perfect refreshing drink for the blistering heat of summer. The history of this drink technically reaches all the way back to our very first seasonal drink lineup in 2017. Since we opened our cafe in August, our first seasonal menu was a summer one, and we only had a couple drinks on it. We served a drink that was like an espresso version of a Dark and Stormy cocktail, using ginger-lime syrup with sparkling water. We loved the combination of ginger and espresso, but it wasn’t resonating with people very much, so we didn’t bring it back the next year. Eventually, however, our personal desire for a gingery espresso tonic brought us back to the table hoping for some tweaks to bring an old idea back to life. Thus was born the The Butterfly Effect. True to its name, it only took some very slight adjustments to make a truly stand-out drink: like swapping agave for sugar and adding a splash of coconut milk. Of course, the Butterly Pea Powder from our friends at Rishi adds the color that rounds the whole thing out beautifully.
The Ube Latte
Our take on the award winning, cult classic Ube Donut from our friends at Gurnee Donuts. Ube is a purple root vegetable that tastes like a vanilla wafer cookie. Trust us, it’s delicious! Made with espresso, Ube syrup, sweetened condensed milk, coconut milk, and milk. Oddly enough, it pairs well with its pastry counterpart!
We originally launched this drink in our 2019 Spring Menu, which was all inspired by fun spring hues. Stefan loved the idea of having a multi-colored experience, and gave us the direction we needed to try lots of interesting drink options that year (like a beat-based beverage). With color in mind, we were drawn to the delicious ube donut, an award-winning donut which our friends at Gurnee Donuts launched a few years prior. With their help sourcing ube ingredients and their guidance on flavor combinations, we landed on this crowd-pleasing latte. It has been such a hit, in fact, that for the past couple years, we haven’t had the heart to take it away for the summer. That’s why this season, you can continue enjoying the Ube Latte until the fall drinks drop!
The Stockholm
The Stockholm is our celebratory toast to even better and warmer days ahead. This bright and fresh coffee mocktail is made with lingonberry jam, sparkling water, espresso, simple syrup, and mint leaf garnish, served over ice. Grab one, and let’s cheers to summer time!
The Stockholm was originally launched in our 2019 Winter menu, back when I was still playing a bigger role in drink creation. I was pushing hard to have a lingonberry drink of some sort. Because of my Swedish heritage, lingonberries were always a beloved treat—it reminds me of family walks to get lingonberry waffles, or jam with ice cream or (let’s face it) trips to Ikea. In fact, Ikea is where we got the jam for our original Stockholm recipe. I greatly over-estimated the amount of jam we’d go through that first year and was having jam on toast for ages afterward (no complaints here, though)! We launched this drink as an espresso tonic which, being winter, didn’t sell super well. I was among a small hand-full of die hard fans who would order it in the freezing cold, but that’s about it. The following year we brought it back in the spring and it finally clicked for the rest of the crowd. Personally, I think the simplicity of this drink is what makes it. The lingonberry jam shines with the espresso to make a perfect balance between sweet and tart. The mint sprig on top was a stroke of genius by Stefan, adding just a touch of that crispness to each sip.
Kopi & KAya
Take a journey to Singapore with this uniquely sweet island homage. Kaya is a classic southeast asain coconut palm jam. Pair this with coffee (Kopi) and you have a cherished Singaporean breakfast. Made with coconut milk, kaya syrup, and espresso layered together with your choice of milk.
A variation of this drink was launched during our Tiki Summer (2021). Stefan had been playing around with pandan for a long time, hoping to be able to serve a drink with it. Pandan—a type of palm leaf—is a common ingredient in Singaporean food, especially kaya jam, which is one of our all time favorite treats. Every time Stefan’s dad goes to Singapore to visit family, we request as many jars of kaya as possible be brought back for us to enjoy. The South China Sea, as it was called for our Tiki Summer, was a huge hit, but Stefan has honed in the flavor to enhance the pandan even more, and really embrace the traditional pairing of kopi (meaning “coffee”) and kaya. One sip does, indeed, take me back to eating kaya toast with my morning coffee under a canopy of palm trees in Singapore.
Which will you try first?
With all of these options, there really isn’t a way to go wrong. We hope you have a chance to try every drink this summer and pin down your favorite—good luck choosing!
Joanna Tong
Joanna is one of the owners here at Tala, heading up Operations and Strategy. Born and raised in Minnesota, she moved to Illinois in 2014 with no intention of staying long-term until the idea of Tala came to light. When not in the office or the cafe, you can find her in a forest preserve enjoying the outdoors or at home hanging out with her cat.