Weekender #254

🌿 309 lbs → 190 lbs in 7 months. No Ozempic. No calorie counting. Meet the Canadian who did it with one app.

🤖 The best AI productivity tools for 2026, ranked and actually useful.

🛋 Nate Berkus’ secret to beautiful home decor without spending a lot.

📱 After-hours email creates anxiety even when you don’t respond.

It’s almost PSL season. You can smell the spice in the air. So in honor of fall, let’s talk about coffee, from one basic b*tch to another.

I love coffee. Espresso after dinner in Spain, café de la olla in Mexico, 7-11 coffee with those little hazelnut creamers that are so bad for me and taste so good. I’m a coffee girly.

I’m also the person who opens one of those coffee explainer charts, gets overwhelmed by the tiny cup diagrams, closes it, and orders the same thing I always do.

So as the sophisticated adult I yearn to become, I finally sorted it out. It’s way simpler than those charts make it look.

It really comes down to three things

Every espresso drink is the same couple of ingredients arranged three ways. Instead of memorizing a menu, ask three questions about the cup in front of you:

1. What kind of coffee is it? A shot of espresso, or regular brewed coffee?
2. What got added? Steamed milk, a cap of foam, a splash of water, or some combination?
3. What’s the ratio? Mostly coffee, half and half, or mostly milk?

Answer those and you know exactly what you’re holding.

The milk drinks, strongest to mildest

Picture a dial. One end is a tiny cup that’s almost all espresso with a splash of milk. The other is a big glass that’s mostly milk with one shot hiding in it. Every drink below is a point on that dial.

Cortado (1:1 espresso to milk): A small glass, half espresso and half steamed milk, one even caramel color top to bottom, no real foam. Small, warm, and strong.

Flat white (1:2 espresso to milk): A little bigger, a bit more milk, and a thin glossy layer of microfoam on top (this is the one with the pretty latte art). Still coffee forward, just silkier.

Cappuccino (1:1:1 espresso, milk, foam): Equal parts espresso, steamed milk, and a tall fluffy cap of foam you could almost spoon. Airy and light on the tongue.

Latte (1:3 espresso to milk): The big pale one. Mostly steamed milk, one shot of espresso, a thin layer of foam. The mildest and creamiest of the bunch.

Latte macchiato (1:3 espresso to milk, layered not mixed): The showoff. Served in a tall clear glass so you can see the stripes, white milk on the bottom, a dark band of espresso poured through the middle, foam on top.

And a café au lait? Literally French for coffee with milk. It’s equal parts brewed coffee and steamed milk in a wide cup, and it’s the one drink here that skips the espresso entirely.

The cold ones

Iced coffee is brewed hot, then cooled and poured over ice.

Cold brew is a different animal. It steeps in cold water for 12 hours or more, so it comes out smoother and [LINK SLOT 1: less acidic] than hot brewed.

Nitro is that cold brew charged with nitrogen, so it pours frothy and cascading. Basically the Guinness of coffee.

Layered vs. mixed iced lattes: I’ve always loved my iced lattes layered and hated them pre-stirred. I thought that was just a bad coffee shop. Turns out I love the “flavor progression,” that first hit of milk or syrup before the espresso catches up. Which explains the [LINK SLOT 2: iced latte macchiato] obsession.

So, how’d you do? Next time you walk up to the counter, skip your usual. Order the thing you actually want, now that you can actually name it.

Preferably with a little cinnamon on top.

Thania (TA Content Mgr)

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📚 Read: Land by Maggie O’Farrell

Set in 1865 Ireland, a father and his reluctant son are mapping the country for the Ordnance Survey when an unsettling encounter in a copse cracks everything open. O’Farrell weaves colonization, grief, and survival into something quietly spellbinding.

📺 Watch: Sugar (Apple TV+)

Colin Farrell plays a private detective in modern-day LA hired to find a missing Hollywood producer’s granddaughter, then episode 6 takes a swing that completely reframes what you thought you were watching.

🎧 Listen: How to Build a Better Future (The Mel Robbins Podcast)

Seth Godin joins Mel to break down why we keep putting off the things we actually want to do, and how to start moving, even if you’re scared or don’t feel ready. He’s direct, warm, and just the right amount of calling you out.

HiBob puts onboarding, time off, performance reviews, compensation, and people analytics into one platform built for growing, distributed teams.

You get a real-time org chart everyone can see, onboarding tasks that route themselves to HR, IT, and the new hire’s manager, and workforce data you can actually act on instead of a spreadsheet nobody trusts.

It’s also built around actual culture: shoutouts, surveys, and a system employees actually want to log into.

👉 See how Bob works for teams your size.

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Happy National Dog Day weekend! This is Pacer. He survived parvo as a puppy and has spent the last 12 years making sure everyone around him knows it was worth it. He takes his walks seriously, considers beef a personality trait, and has perfected the single-look guilt trip that makes leaving the house feel like a federal crime.

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