But first, why do this?  I've read about lots of people who set out to taste such-and-such in every state or do such-and-such in every country.  For example, the person who wants to go to every Starbucks on the planet or the couple we met while traveling who wants to golf in every state in the United States.  That is not what we did; it just happened.  One day while having an iced latte we thought hmm this latte is much better than the one yesterday; at which point we realized we'd been tasting lattes at each place we stopped. After that we simply had to keep trying lattes everywhere we went. Well almost everywhere, we only tasted lattes in places that were full service coffee houses. We also restricted ourselves to local coffee houses; we did not go to national chains.

The result? We had a clear and highly superior favorite which I will describe in a bit but first let me tell you about our general impressions and experience.  The taste of the coffee was definitely the most important criteria but we also checked out the atmosphere, service, and environment of the coffee house.  Now, it may have been because we were primarily in small towns but most of the places were very quiet with few other people present.  The lack of customers may also have been because we were at the edges of national parks or other summer tourist locations at the beginning of June before school had let out.  Whatever the reason, the environment in the places we tasted was overall very quite. 

Atmosphere varied considerably ranging from small crowded shops to somewhat large shops and from very comfy couches to hard uncomfortable chairs at small useless tables.  Most places had something we could read, generally a local newspaper, but not all.  Service also varied greatly ranging from very personalized and engaging to the totally uninterested almost non-present teen. 

Tasting iced cafe lattes at 12 or so different places in 3 weeks was lots of fun.  It gave us a time to relax, reflect on the day's activities, and it introduced us to parts of small town America we otherwise would not have seen.  For example, in one shop after we ordered our coffee the clerk realized she had no small bills for change.  She didn't know what to do so she called the owner who told her to go to the bank.  She turned to us and said "I need to go to the bank can you watch the store for me?".  We had been car camping for 2 plus weeks so we probably had not showered in days and we certainly did not look our best and had never met her before.  Yet, she proceeded to leave the store with us in charge for about 10 minutes.  No one came in but it might have been fun to try and make them a coffee!  It was a pleasant surprise to see that some small towns in the US have not lost that special charm .

I could probably tell you something about each of the 12 or so places we tried but I'll stop here and just tell you about our favorite.  The shop is called Morning Glory Coffee and it is located in West Yellowstone, Mt.  They roast their own coffee, have a great atmosphere, interact with their customers, and of course make outstanding cafe lattes.  The preparation was unique.  Much like a bartender shakes a cocktail, the barista shook our lattes with ice and filtered them before pouring them over fresh ice.  While I don't know exactly how that improves the flavor it was fun to watch and was consistent with the fun tone of Morning Glory Coffee.  They have a large store with lots of comfy spots to sit, interesting decorations, and a steady stream of regulars visiting for their Java fix.  After three weeks of trying Iced Cafe Lattes and different places nearly everyday Morning Glory was clearly the best.  So, while I'm not sure I'll ever head back to Yellowstone I know I'll order more of Morning Glory's Coffee - too bad I can't mail order some iced cafe latte as well!