\u201cIn The Heights,\u201d my 5-year-old\u2019s favorite movie about New York City, which I\u2019ve now seen 30 times, opens with dual crises: It\u2019s hot as hell outside, and the fridge where the bodega keeps its milk and half-and-half is broken.<\/p>\n
This means that Usnavi, our hero, has to quickly find a way for his customers to cut the sludgy intensity of the piping hot cups of coffee they\u2019re about to order.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that cold, refreshing beverages don\u2019t exist in the world of \u201cIn The Heights.\u201d (Another crisis in the film is that the piragua guy is getting squeezed.) It\u2019s just a given that, even on a summer day that\u2019ll end with a blackout, coffee is still served hot.<\/p>\n
Or, it was!<\/p>\n
When Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the story \u2014 the Broadway show opened in 2008 \u2014 iced coffee had yet to take over the city.<\/p>\n
Cold drinks now make up about 75% of Starbucks\u2019 sales. There are lines outside the iced matcha mecca, Blank Street. The Mormon soda wave is encroaching. And even our mayor \u2014 who has some predilection for old-school flair, if partly to assure his skeptics he\u2019s not turning the city into a Soviet skatepark \u2014 takes his coffee cold.<\/p>\n
At this point, I wonder, what are the hot coffee year-rounders, myself included, clinging to? And I\u2019m not talking about the single-origin pour-over variety that tastes like blueberries, which is gross. I\u2019m talking about the stuff I like: plain, medium-roast coffee with a little cream and sugar, which doesn\u2019t taste amazing, either. Why do we drink this, especially in the heat?<\/p>\n