It’s that time of year, folks. Late December brings another Caffeinated Liv wrapped.

This year, I’m breaking it down by US-only, as well as including abroad. I’ll share my most expensive lattes, average price per coffee, and total amount spent on coffee this year.

Plus, a comprehensive list by state of each café I visited, and a fun review of the latte flavors I tried, at-home roasters I loved, and more. The frequent fliers, the new-to-me cafés, it’s all in here. Buckle up and maybe grab a coffee– this could be a long one.

The US Cafés I Visited:

80 Unique Coffee Shops

Most Visited by State: Vermont

Royal Oak: 9 times

Minifactory: 4 times

Little Seed: 3 times

Haymaker: 2 times

Vergennes Laundry: 2 times 

Massachusetts

Haute Coffee: 6 times

Vester: 6 times

Revival: 6 times

Tatte: 4 times

Jaho: 3 times

I visited over 80 different spots in the US this year as of December 26. For the full list of all 205 total I made it to, also refer to my June post of Caffeinated Liv Wrapped, Europe Edition!

Massachusetts Cafes: 79 coffees, 47 unique cafés/chains (bold = new to me)

• Revival Cafe and Kitchen (Cambridge, Somerville, Boston)
• Brothers & Sisters (Brookline)
• Crepeberry (Wellesley) (now closed)
• Tatte (various)
• Curio Coffee (Cambridge)
• Pepita Coffee (Cambridge)
• Cafe Weekend (Boston – Allston)
• Madhouse Cafe (Roxbury)
• Quebrada Baking Co. (Wellesley, and other locations)
• Life Alive Café (Various)
• Faro Cafe (Cambridge)
• Crack’d Kitchen (Andover)
• Tiny Arms Coffee (Lowell)
• Tradesman Coffee Shop & Lounge (Boston)
• Kicco Coffee (Boston)
• Acton Coffee House (Acton)
• Karma Coffee (Sudbury)
• Haute Coffee (Concord)
• Dunkin’ (Various)
• Café Landwer (Boston)
• Cannonball Cafe (Boston)
• Diesel Café (Somerville)
• Blank Street Coffee (Various)
• Render Coffee (Boston)
• JP Licks (Somerville)
• Kohi Coffee (Boston)
• Michette Bakery (Somerville)
• Say Weekend (Boston)
• Six West (Boston)
• Pavement Coffee House (Boston, Cambridge, various)
• George Howell Coffee (Boston)
• Gracenote Coffee (Boston)
• Greystone Café (Boston)
• 3 Little Figs (Boston)
• Common Good Coffee (Waltham)
• Mighty Squirrel (Waltham)
• Nashoba Bakery (Concord)
• Jaho Coffee (Boston, various locations in Cambridge, Salem, other cities)
• Broadsheet Coffee (Cambridge)
• Vester (Cambridge and Boston)
• Yego Coffee (Somerville)
• Heirloom (Weston)
• Clear Flour Coffee Bar (Brookline)
• Source (Cambridge)

Spots Maddy went to for Caffeinated Liv content: Far Out, Bom Dough, Koko Coffee

Vermont Cafés: 36 coffees from 23 different cafés

• Abracadabra Coffee (Woodstock)
• Mon Vert Cafe (Woodstock)
• Royal Oak Coffee (Middlebury)
• Little Seed Coffee (Middlebury)
• Haymaker Bun Co (Middlebury)
• Vergennes Laundry (Vergennes)
• Jones the Boy (Bristol)
• Minifactory (Bristol)
• Village Wine and Coffee (Shelburne)
• Le Marché (Shelburne)
• Kru Coffee (Burlington)
• Great Harvest Bakery (Burlington)
• Nomad Coffee (Burlington)
• Barrio Bakery (Burlington)
• Stowe Bee Bakery (Stowe)
• VT Artisan Coffee (Waterbury)
• Onyx Tonics (Burlington)
• Dunkin’ (Middlebury)
• Vivid Coffee (Burlington)
• The Stone Mill (Middlebury)
• American Flatbread (Middlebury)
• Swift House Inn (Middlebury)
• Roll Away Café (Burlington) – note: a late add to the list after publishing on Instagram! very much loved just somehow escaped my initial transcription despite the coffee being accounted for in the spreadsheet)

Maine Cafés: 7 coffees from 6 unique cafés

• Tandem Coffee (Portland)
• Dog Bar Jim (Brunswick)
• Little Woodford’s (now closed) (Portland)
• Speckled Ax Coffee (Portland)
• Gemini Cafe (Bethel)
• Bread and Friends (Portland)

Illinois: 2 coffees from different cafés

• Mojo Coffee (Chicago)
• Intelligentsia Coffee (Chicago)

New Hampshire: 2 cafés! 2 coffees

• Coffee and Kindness (Nashua)
• Elephantine Bakery (Portsmouth)

New York: 8 coffees from 6 different cafés/chains, plus one honorable mention!

• Partners Coffee (Brooklyn, Manhattan)
• St. Kilda Coffee (NYC)
• For Five Coffee (NYC)
• Butler Bakeshop (NYC)
• Bluestone Lane (NYC)
• Blank Street (NYC)
• Variety Coffee Roasters (NYC) – counting this as a new spot visited but not included in the final list and total because I bought a coffee for a friend here rather than for myself

Information about all my coffee abroad can be found in my Caffeinated Liv Wrapped, Europe post.

Coffee Orders

Here goes my U.S. coffee orders by frequency.

Most popular: 

• Cold brew: 33 orders
• Iced latte: 21
• Iced americanos/iced coffee (combined): 23
• Hot latte: 20

The full breakdown by type and by milk is as follows. May have missed a few, but here goes!

• Hot latte: 20
  • With oat milk (with or without flavor): 17
  • With other milks: 3
    • Coconut, almond
• Cold brew: 33
  • With oat milk: 16
  • With other milks: 5
    • Regular 2%, pistachio, hazelnut
  • Plain, black cold brew: 7
  • Nitro can: 4

• Iced coffee/iced americano: 23
  • With oat milk: 10
  • Plain (canned or black): 6
  • With other milk: 7
    • Sesame, regular skim, pistachio
• Iced latte: 21
  • with oat milk: 8
  • With almond: 10
  • With other milks: 3
    • Coconut, sesame
• Flat white: 7
  • With oat milk 6
  • With macadamia 1
• Drip coffee: 5
• Cortado: 5
  • With oat: 5
• Other types: 4
  • Unique coffees and matcha, chai, etc. 

The total number of coffees I drank this year in the US once you include espresso martinis ended up being ~133 before December 26. Pretty wild! Including the last few coffees of the year, I’ve had 138.

Latte Flavors

I tried a good amount of flavors, too. Here’s a list of all 32 unique ones and where I tried them, if not at multiple cafés. This doesn’t include classic vanilla, hazelnut, caramel flavor syrups used at home.

• Creme brulee (Brothers & Sisters)
• Weekend Latte (made with whipped coffee- Café Weekend and Say Weekend)
• Tahini (Madhouse Café)
• Butternut spice (Life Alive)
• Maple/pecan/cinnamon (Crack’d Kitchen)
• Cardamom vanilla (“Cardi V” at Tiny Arms, Royal Oak)
• Maple cinnamon (Tradesman)
• Madagascar Vanilla (Tradesman)
• Cardamom Orange (Haute Coffee)
• Oatmeal Cookie (Vester, Jaho)
• Vanilla bean (Vester)
• Blueberry ginger, in a tea latte spritzer (Vester)
• Passionfruit, in a matcha latte (Cannonball)
• Brown sugar (Blank Street, Haymaker Bun)
• Black sesame (Partners Coffee)
• Vanilla cold foam (Revival Cafe)
• Pumpkin Spice (Various: Revival, Royal Oak, Heirloom)
• Maple Brown Sugar (3 Little Figs)
• Maple Spice with Cardamom (Haute Coffee)
• Coconut (Common Good)
• Hazelnut (Mighty Squirrel, Jaho and various)
• Kulfi: Pistachio, rose, cardamom (Jaho)
• Cookies and Cream (Vester)
• Smoked maple and rosemary (Bread and Friends)
• Cardamom cinnamon (Minifactory)
• Sweet potato pie (Little Seed)
• Maple (Onyx Tonics, Vivid Coffee)
• Ma’amoul (Royal Oak)
• Gingerbread (Olga’s)
• Peppermint mocha (Olga’s)
• Maple with smoked bacon salt (Cannonball)
• Brown sugar cardamom (Clear Flour Coffee Bar)

Money Spent on Coffee and Price Per Coffee

I’ll include comparison stats here on average price per coffee (keeping in mind many coffees were free from content collaboration and many were quite expensive).

Average price per coffee in the U.S.: $340 for 138 coffees = $2.46.

However, this included 46 “free” coffees, which came either from in-app deals and coffee shop promotions or from content creation. In addition, I had several coffee dates with friends or family where they treated. I didn’t keep track of how much I spent on coffee for others, just my own coffees, but that could be a separate category. I love to take friends out to coffee! If you exclude coffees that were free, the average price per coffee I paid was $5. This makes sense given that I gravitate toward non-dairy milk, cold brew and lattes that usually carry a higher price tag. 

My most expensive coffees:

• Vester: Iced latte with sesame milk $7.50
• Haute: Latte with oat milk $7.22
• Partners Coffee: Cold brew with black sesame $7
• Little Seed: Sweet potato pie latte with oat milk $7
• Pepita: cold brew flight for $7 (in some ways this felt like a steal because the flight comes with four different flavors)

The most expensive drink was actually a 2-in-one coffee: a split-shot latte, which was two single shot lattes in separate cups, for $8.25 from Royal Oak. I’m not including this in my ranking because it was two separate latte flavors and shared with a friend so very much felt like two drinks.

If you include my coffee spending abroad, for the total year I spent about $960 US dollars on 347 coffees out (an average of almost one a day, although I had plenty of days where I made coffee at home and some where I doubled up). Might have mistyped this on my Instagram graphic with 334 but either way, quite a lot of coffee! Not sure if I was expecting a higher or lower total, because that is a lot of dollars to spend on anything. I have a feeling next year being back in the US full time, I will spend more money per coffee and likely go out to coffee a bit less. I went a little crazy during my semester abroad and basically tried somewhere new every day, whereas back at home I go out for coffee once or twice a week on average, usually on weekends. 

And finally, I cannot forget to mention all the cafés, brands and restaurants that I collaborated with to create content this year. Hopefully, this is an exhaustive list. I included all brands that sent me product to review, as well as cafés and restaurants that had me in for a meal or to highlight new menu options with a scheduled visit. If there’s a little asterisk next to the café name, my sister Maddy went in my stead as Caffeinated Mad, which happened a few times while I was abroad.  I collaborated with 40 New England/Northeast businesses for on-site content creation (including one in Vermont, one in New York and one in New Hampshire) and six cafés in Madrid while abroad, which was such a highlight of the year.

Collaborations in Spain (all in Madrid)

• Arya Café
• Plein Café and Deli (Majadahonda)
• Feca Café 
• Café Tamar
• Wolfox 
• Merienda Café

In the Northeast:

• Far Out Ice Cream (Brookline)
• Vester Cafe x2 (South Boston & former Foundry location)

• Koko Coffee (Boston)
• Tradesman (Boston)
• Bom Dough (Cambridge)

• Madhouse Café (Roxbury)
• Quebrada Bakery (Wellesley)
• Brothers and Sisters (Brookline)
• Life Alive x2 (South End, Brookline)

• Koy Boston (Boston)
• Mother Juice (Boston)
• JP Licks (Somerville)
• El Peñol 3 (Brookline)
• Southern Kin (Somerville)
• Mike’s Davis Square (Somerville)
• Six West (Boston)
• Partners Coffee (Brooklyn, NY)
• Say Weekend (Boston)
• Michette Bakery (Somerville)
• Heirloom (Weston)
• Revival Cafe (Somerville)
• Jaho (Boston)
• Tack Room (Lincoln)
• Mighty Squirrel (Waltham)
• Night Shift (Boston)
• Coffee and Kindness (Nashua, NH)
• Flourhouse Bakery (Newton)
• Olga’s Kafe (Boston)
• American Flatbread Middlebury (Middlebury, VT)
• Green Haus Café (Boston)
• Premiere Broadway (Somerville)
• Reunion BBQ (Boston)
• Pottery with a Purpose (Boston)
• Clear Flour Coffee Bar (Boston)
• Common Good (Waltham)
• 2Twenty2 (Boston)
• Source (Cambridge)
• Café Weekend (Boston)

At-home content/reviews: 

• WECO Hospitality
• Rare Breed Coffee
• Chamberlain Coffee
• Grady’s Cold Brew
• Counter Culture Coffee
• XXI Martinis
• Willa’s Oat Milk
• Peet’s Coffee
• Tache Pistachio Milk
• Nutpods
• Clevr Blends
• Rarebird