Caffeine and sugar are a great combination to fuel a lifestyle defined by stress and insomnia, but I think America might be on a runaway train based on our trends over the last year...

Per Axios, our coffee consumption after breakfast (when one would normally need a shot of caffeine) is up 15% since July '21, but that's not all. People are raving for candy-flavored coffee with major candy brands taking advantage of our collective sweet-tooth.

American coffee consumption is at a two-decade high, per the National Coffee Association, and more of us are now drinking it at all hours of the day, sometimes instead of a sugary snack. That's a pandemic-era habit shift that's likely here to stay.

• Coffee consumption after breakfast is up 15% since last July, the coffee association said.
• Young people are lapping it up, stoking demand for sweet, nostalgia-oriented products — how about some Fruity Pebbles creamer?
• Companies that make refrigerated creamers, flavoring syrups and coffee makers say sales have risen as Americans have learned to become in-home baristas.

A bunch of these flavors are things like Twinkies and M&Ms.

The heck, America??

If you want candy, why not just eat candy?? And if you want cereal, why don't you just eat cereal?

And for heaven's sake, who are you people who want cheap-ice-cream-flavored coffee instead of just EATING ICE CREAM WITH YOUR COFFEE??

I'm not as passionate as my man John Knox when it comes to cheap donuts, but I think he may be on to something. There is something super wrong with y'all.

Sensing that our home-brewing habits are here to stay, consumer goods companies are flooding stores with new coffee products catering to our sweet tooth — and disguising the original taste.

While coffee purists scoff, younger consumers are snapping up liquid stir-ins in flavors like Twinkie, Cinnabon, M&M's and Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Among 18- to 24-year-olds — Gen Z — coffee consumption is up 14% since January 2021.

They're not the only ones craving the sweet stuff: "Millennials are driving the current, all-time high penetration of flavored creamers," says Leonardo Aizpuru, leader of the creamer unit at Nestlé, which makes Coffee mate and other brands.

Maybe the straight-black coffee drinkers were onto something. Decades ago when people started frilling up coffee they warned us about the slippery slope. It starts with sugar, then cream, then special flavors and brews, then literal candy.

I mean, where do we even go from here? 👇

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