Last September, when I was starting my freshman year at Kenyon, I went to Wiggin Street Coffee, our local coffee shop, nearly every day. Then, my usual order was the iced “Honeysuckle” latte with honey and caramel. I noticed the flavor immediately on the big board behind the baristas, which had fifteen other flavored lattes you could order by name. Then, I got an idea: what if I tried and ranked every single flavored latte on the board? This would give me something to look forward to and encourage me to try new things (which I typically don’t like to do).
At the time, I didn’t think about posting my reviews on social media; I was only going to rank and review each latte flavor for my own enjoyment. After my mom suggested posting the reviews online, however, I decided to give it a go. “Maybe I could make it a series?” I thought. “A series where I post about each of the lattes I was going to try and review them?” Mainly, I wanted something to reflect on in the future that would remind me of freshman year.Â
I initiated the series by ranking “German Chocolate” (chocolate, coconut, caramel). I record myself explaining what I’ll be trying, try the drink on camera, then, later, I give a rating on a scale from 1-10, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. After recording, I post the review on my Instagram story. I continue with my reviews, creating one review daily and posting my reviews on social media. What I did not expect, however, was the amount of support I got from my Instagram followers. Originally, I did not think anyone would care about my coffee rankings. I’d assumed that the people who follow me on Instagram would click through my story and not pay it any mind whatsoever, as that’s exactly what I do with almost everyone’s Instagram stories. I expected people to do the same for my videos.
Gradually, I started to receive Instagram messages and in-person comments from people who said they love my Wiggins reviews. The wide variety of people I’ve heard from includes my mom (of course), my high-school friends, my colleagues at my summer job, distant family members I only see for holidays, and obviously, my peers here at Kenyon. Some general comments I heard ranged from “I love this series!” “I loved Razz-Ma-Tazz too!” to “What are you going to try next?”Â
Though I try to be as humble as possible, all this overwhelming feedback made me proud that I, as a person, was seen in a positive light. Proud, because I made content that people wanted to watch. Due to all the positive feedback I received, I decided to do another set of reviews around the holidays, the series being called “Drinkmas” (a suggestion from one of my peers). That too was well-received and was a nice little side-quest during one of the most stressful times of the year for any college student (aka finals week).Â
Now that I’m a sophomore at Kenyon, I’ve continued with my reviews at Wiggins, although I have made a couple of tweaks:
- I no longer post stories where I mostly type out captions, and it’s just the one video of me trying a drink; instead, I post Instagram reels, all video, no typing, just easier and likely more engaging than staring at many boxes of text.
- I only rank 1 drink per week. Less stress on me and less stress on my K-card balance.
- I’m trying non-coffee drinks. Since I tried all of the latte flavors, I decided to branch out and try non-coffee drinks such as matcha, tea, and smoothies in order to provide a different type of content that isn’t familiar to my viewers.
As I sit here typing this article, unironically at Wiggins, sipping on one of my usual orders, (“Nutty Irishman,” has Irish creme and hazelnut), not only am I grateful to be able to share my love of coffee with my social media followers, but that I was able to find a creative outlet for myself that helped me blossom thus far during my time at Kenyon.Â
Finally, here is my list of all the Wiggins latte flavors ranked:
- HoneysuckleÂ
- DublinerÂ
- Nutty IrishmanÂ
- GalaxyÂ
- BumblebeeÂ
- Caramel Nut Mocha
- Razz-ma-tazz
- Salty ScotsmanÂ
- Cinnabun
- CampfireÂ
- Funky Monkey
- Nada Bar
- Wiggin Street Mocha
- Coco Mint MochaÂ
- German ChocolateÂ
- Almond Happiness