Brooklyn Killed Oat Milk, Of Course

Coligado's shop, Butler, was the second cafe in NYC to carry the new coffee additive, and within six months had seen its consumption quadruple, the New Yorker reports. Then, it suddenly vanished, with the supplier claiming the stock had dried up, as it were. "It's affecting their life styles," Coligado said. "Something catches on so quickly, and then it just goes away."

Apparently it comes down to a simple issue of supply and demand, though it's the rare case in business where the latter beats out the former. The oat-milk process is a delicate dance that involves using enzymes to liquify raw oat kernels, and as the general manager of the Swedish company that invented oat milk explained, "There's a tension between speed and quality here," he said. "We can't just go to a manufacturer and say, 'Here's a bucket of oats, go and make oat milk!' This was all too much and too soon."

While some product can be found on sites like Amazon for an inflated price, it seems that Brooklynites, hipsters and coffee snobs the world over will simply have to wait until more batches can be made or the next craze catches on.