Mocha

The gateway coffee beverage, the mocha is the best of both worlds. You want your hot chocolate with a little extra zing of caffeine! You want your coffee with the smooth je-ne-sais-quoi of bittersweet syrup. You are also an idealist, and tell yourself you’ll order it without whip… tomorrow. You are therefore not practical. You are all about treating yourself on the daily.

Latte

No frills, no syrup, maybe a modicum of foam. You’re simple. You’re clean and wholesome and well-rounded. Are you Martha Stewart? Just as you once probably dabbled in the ways of the vanilla latte, you were once a little flashier, a little rowdier, a little crazier, a little drunker. And then you grew up and got your credit card under control, and this bad boy is your calling card for being the polished lil grown up you are today. Get your feet wet every once in a while, classy one. Get the syrup. Go ahead. You earned it.

Coffee with Cream and Sugar

You are probably the most put-together adult I’ve ever met. Can I meet you? I want to be as put together as you are. Please?

Coffee with Artificial Sweetener and Nonfat Milk

You laugh in the face of death. Ha ha ha, death! you say. Ha ha ha, weight gain! You are also the kind of person who is probably saving up for seconds on dessert, let’s be real here. You make one big fashion purchase a year while the rest of us squander the untold millions at Forever 21. You are the person who orders a Diet Coke with a Big Mac. You got a breakfast pastry with this baby, didn’t you?

Black Coffee

You have something to prove. You are not so hardcore as much as you want to be seen as hardcore. You want to be intense. You want to be a force to be reckoned with. You want to be no-nonsense and serious and YOU WANT TO GET SHIT DONE. But you’ll have to wait for the perfect time to implement your schemes and dreams. Just as your coffee is often too hot to sip upon first pour, so too are your ideas too grand to implement the minute you dream them up.

Iced Coffee

You were the kid who always asked for a bendy straw, and you have grown into an adult who is no-nonsense and wants the quickest way to ingest the most amount of caffeine without scalding your mouth in the process. Also, you’re an adult who still likes bendy straws. You are also probably the kind of person who judges people on their patronage of the green stars of Starbucks, the orange straws of Dunkin Donuts, or the black straws of some artisanal coffee house. It’s the little things that tell you more about a person than the big picture does, okay. The devil is in the details. Straws are status.

Iced Coffee in Wintertime

Well, now you’re just trying to show off.

Nonfat Cappuccino

It is the cup and not the coffee you’re after. We live in the age of materialism and being able to drop $5 a pop on sophisticated air-juice is your final calling card. It is the Birkin of coffee. Also, hon, how’s that diet going?

Espresso

Sorry that 5 hour energy isn’t looked at as a healthy morning pick-me-up, bro.

Dirty Chai Tea Latte

You sneaky bastard. You like having the best of both worlds, and you revel in your paradox. Your dream vacation involves straddling two state lines, A Walk To Remember style. Except, you know, without the terminal illness part.

[(Coffee + Syrup + Ice) X Blender ] + Whipped Cream = Trademark Name Here

You are the kind of person who promptly declares you’ll have ice cream for dinner when the temperature screeches past a certain degree in the summertime. You have to remind yourself to eat your vegetables, and you don’t understand why frills and amenities and whipped cream are optional. What kind of question is that, anyhow? Would you want whipped cream? OF COURSE YOU WANT WHIPPED CREAM. I am therefore extraordinarily jealous of your devotion to instant gratification. You are the Mocha drinker, fully realized.

You are also either 12, or in denial about the fact that what you are drinking is, by all accounts, dessert.

Pumpkin Spice Latte

I’m sorry, I mean PSL. You live your life through Instagram’s early-bird filter, and you probably have dreams of turning your Pinterest board into a lucrative side-job. But really, anything I’d say about you has been said already. So go on, twirl in the falling varicolored leaves with your latte and your scarf and your boots. Revel in fall, PSL-lover. Winter is coming, and your reign will soon be at end.