I’m not a coffee drinker. But technically, neither are most of you.

I pass by six coffee places on my way to work every day. Most of them are your chain stores, the Starbucks, the Second Cup, the Timmy Hos, and each of them has their own special brand of marketing that, I’m sure, caters to the customers they want to, or feel they should, attract.

Those customers seem to want coffee that tastes like food.

Dessert, specifically. When I went to grad school, we used to take long breaks at the Starbucks, where I became addicted to the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate for the entire months of December and January. Once, in a proud moment, I ordered a cup of whipped cream, doused in caramel sauce and a generous shake of the special Starbucks salt*. There wasn’t a drop of coffee to be seen in my order, and in most of the orders around me – we were all in a coffee shop, ordering buckets of sugar.

Today, Starbucks is offering their new Caramel Flan Latte. Think Starbucks staff gets Caramel Tunnel Syndrome? That’s a lot of drizzle.

*In my defense, I was writing a defense. High five!