TikTok's Viral Cracking Latte Is The Satisfying Sip Of Summer

If you've been looking through TikTok lately you may have seen the new iced coffee trend making the rounds called the cracking latte. In its simplest form, the cracking latte is a chocolate covered cup with iced coffee and milk inside. The chocolate is frozen to the plastic cup which you can then squeeze to hear the crack of the chocolate break off, hence the clever name.

While it's fun to get creative, this trend doesn't seem like it has much staying power. Don't get us wrong, experimentation is the spice that makes the food world go 'round. It's just that the drink prioritizes the visual aesthetic over quite literally everything else. As we dive deeper into the drink this will make perfect sense.

To make a cracking latte, start by getting your hands on a plastic cup like coffee shops use for iced coffee. You could use some other container but if you can't squeeze it you won't get the satisfying crack, and if you can't see through the sides of the cup you lose a lot of the visual appeal. Now coat the sides of the cup in melted chocolate or chocolate syrup and stick it in the freezer until the chocolate has hardened. Simply fill the cup with ice, cold brew, and milk and you've got yourself a cracked latte. If you want to take it a step further, try topping your iced coffee with banana cold foam.

This trend leans heavily on the ASMR vibes of cracking chocolate which is an intriguing way to incorporate sound (a sense that's often overlooked in cooking). But plastic also makes a sound when it's pinched, so the pleasant crack of the chocolate is somewhat overpowered by the unappetizing crunch of semi-hard plastic. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the chocolate were being incorporated into the flavor profile of the drink. But because the chocolate is frozen and the coffee is cold, there's almost no chocolate flavor. There's a reason this isn't called a cracking mocha latte. It's definitely not the worst TikTok iced coffee trend we've seen but it does lack substance.

Despite the trend being a little underwhelming in its current form we can use the concept as a springboard to new ideas. We'll need some more time at the drawing board to innovate on the sound component, but there are other aspects to focus on.

If we wanted to improve the visual appeal of the chocolate we could incorporate something like crushed up peppermint candy for a fun yuletide twist. As for the visuals of the drink itself, it's largely covered up by the chocolate coating until you break it apart but you could try layering the iced latte so the ingredients don't separate. You could also add non-frozen chocolate to the drink if you want a mocha instead of a latte.