Poor man's latte / ghetto latte

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Dec 4, 2007 2:13 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> The earliest Webcite I can find for "poor man's latte" is Mar 13, 2006
> (http://dc.metblogs.com/archives/2006/03/costco_the_land_1.phtml) by
> narni therese: "my favorite is the "poor man's latte" where a customer
> makes their own iced latte using milk from the condiment bar."
>
> The next hit I see is Aug 14 2006
> (http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com/_/2006/08/a_seemingly_min.html) by
> CuteBarista!: "(we have at least one person per morning that comes up to
> the counter and demands a free cup of coffee, not to mention the poor
> man's latte folks, etc), we would be losing serious money."
>
> Around September 2006, both "ghetto latte" and "poor man's latte" seem
> to have hit currency in the press, though the comment from CuteBarista!
> indicates the word was commonly known by then. Probably some earlier
> hits for people with access to newspaper archives.

Some earlier discussion of "ghetto latte" on the Usenet newsgroup
alt.coffee from Jan. 2006 (in a thread featuring our own Alice Faber):

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.coffee/browse_frm/thread/9018dd901f8a70fb/f7909ae26e5b24e5

Another term in use is "bootleg latte".


--Ben Zimmer

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