A Midwest coffee shop is sharing the recipe for its most popular latte … with other coffee shops.
Little Joy Coffee in Northfield, Minnesota, posted a video on social media that sparked a movement for independent coffee shops worldwide, and it all started with a Raspberry Danish Latte.
“Let’s see if this thing’s worth 8 bucks,” says Serena Walker, Little Joy’s manager and social media host, in the March 13 video. It’s part of the cafe’s “DIY or Buy” series, which assesses whether a drink should be made at home or purchased in a shop.
Walker shows how the latte is made, with housemade raspberry syrup, whole milk, a double shot of espresso and fresh cream cheese cold foam.
The result is a delectably velvety, fruity and drool-worthy caffeinated beverage, but the verdict is not to make it at home.
“This brings us to a flaw in the whole ‘DIY or Buy’ premise,” Walker says, adding that it isn’t reasonable to buy a plane ticket just to sip a berry latte. “Which is why we’re inviting any coffee shop to steal this drink and put it on their own menu. Not you, Starbucks.”
Raspberry Danish LatteCody Larson
Little Joy then shared its at-scale recipe so that other shops could sell the viral drink.
“For those of you who live a thousand miles away from your nearest Little Joy, hopefully you’ll be able to find a raspberry Danish latte near you soon,” Walker says.
Many shops took Little Joy up on its offer.
“We gave away the recipe to our bestselling drink and told every coffee shop in the world to put it on their menu,” Walker says in a March 21 video, adding that the company made a map of shops selling the Raspberry Danish Latte. “Now, 234 coffee shops across 24 countries are getting ready to serve this drink to their customers.”
As of this writing, there are are now well over 400 shops selling the latte.
“That number goes up every day, and I’m still in disbelief,” Cody Larson, owner of Little Joy, tells TODAY.com. “It fits with our belief that if all independent shops do better, we all do better.”
Larson says that before they decided to make this move, the team noticed that many coffee shops around the world were following the Little Joy account. Many messaged them asking if they could adapt their recipes for use in their own shops.
Plus, followers outside Minnesota couldn’t partake in the “buy” portion of their series, so this move just made sense.
“No one should drive more than 40 minutes for a coffee, no matter how viral it is,” Larson says.
Little Joy’s recipe has spread like wildfire across the U.S.: Every single state except for five (West Virginia, Maryland, South Dakota, Missouri and Mississippi) has a cafe selling this latte.
The latte is sold in more than 23 countries, including Canada, the U.K., Korea, Malaysia and New Zealand.
“It’s pretty special that we’re able to bring the viral latte from the other side of the world to our little small town coffee shop,” Hannah Doughty, owner of Freddie Clere Coffee and Bagels, a shop in Palmerston North, New Zealand, tells TODAY.com. “Coffee connects people and the Little Joy latte definitely has shown that.”
Little Joy says the Raspberry Danish Latte is its most popular signature drink ever, selling over 3,000 of them in the last month. But how is it selling for others?
“We don’t even have it on the regular menu because the raspberry syrup we’re making is going so fast,” Ripesh Neupane, owner of 33 Peaks Café in Southlake, Texas, tells TODAY.com. “If we keep it on the menu, we wouldn’t be able to keep up with demand.”
A manager for Dolce and Ciabatta Bakery in Leesburg, Virginia, tells TODAY.com that the latte has been on the menu for a little less than a month, but it’s become “more and more” popular every day, which seems to be a recurring theme.
“It’s not just the recipe. I think them adding us to their Little Joy map is very beneficial because, as a community coffee shop, they’re putting us on the map,” Neupane says, adding that people are coming into his shop for the first time asking for the drink.
And that’s exactly why Little Joy decided to share its recipe with others.
“In a world where chain coffee shops dominate the market with ingredients that come from a bottle or a box,” says Larson, “making things the hard way from scratch is how independent shops, together, can raise the bar and take back some of that market.”
