Photo by Samarie Goffney<\/a><\/p>\nFort Worth resident Marie Beas drinks a daily Red Bull during the work week. <\/p>\n
Beas doesn\u2019t crack open the silver and blue can. Instead, around midday, she and her co-workers opt for a literal bucket of the energy drink. <\/p>\n
The plastic vessels, typically used for plants or toys at the beach, are becoming to-go cups for iced coffees and beverages for those who have decided that a 16-ounce drink no longer suffices. The trend is drawing a crowd and racking up TikTok attention. <\/p>\n
Beas remembered the first time she heard about it. \u201cA bucket of what? Where did you guys get this? I was like, \u2018Oh, I want one,\u2019\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Stores in Texas and nationwide are leaning into the oddity, serving iced coffees and beverages in buckets with handles and plastic straws. EspressoSelf Cafe, a coffee trailer at Tanger Outlets in Fort Worth, started offering its beverage in the 34-ounce bucket in June after seeing the trend go viral on TikTok. <\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone kept saying, \u2018We just love your coffee, and we want a bigger size for it,\u2019\u201d the shop\u2019s barista Macie Crawford said. \u201cAnd so as a joke, we did a bucket, and people just loved it.\u201d <\/p>\n
EspressoSelf Cafe offers all of its beverages in the bucket. An iced latte, in particular, features six shots of espresso and costs $13. On weekends, they sell about 20 buckets a day. <\/p>\n
Fort Worth resident Ana Ramirez said her watermelon mint Red Bull bucket helps her stay energized during her retail job\u2019s busy back-to-school season. <\/p>\n
Ramirez said she hasn\u2019t tried a full vessel of coffee, but she may give it a chance in the fall if someone offers a pumpkin spice latte bucket. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the only coffee that I can foresee myself drinking to the end of the bucket because a bucket is a lot,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so just normal coffee, or normal latte, I don’t foresee myself finishing the bucket.\u201d <\/p>\n
Crawford recalled a woman from Oklahoma who often comes to the trailer for the coffee buckets. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe drives that far just to come see us, so that makes us happy,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Saginaw resident Michael Johnson, who described himself as a coffee enthusiast, said he goes through a bucket of salted caramel frappe or cold brew each day, a downsizing of his usual intake of two or three 24-oz cups. <\/p>\n
Johnson works in sales, so he relies on the beverage to help him be quick on his feet and alert, and \u201cstay [as] upbeat as possible,\u201d he said. A bucket lasts him anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours. <\/p>\n
Oftentimes, he made an exception for a second bucket. <\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I stay up late playing games,\u201d he said. \u201cSo one of them days where I’m coming off of three or four hours of sleep, a second bucket might be charged.\u201d <\/p>\n
Stacie Ellis, registered dietitian and nutritionist at UTA\u2019s Campus Recreation, said people can consume up to 400 milligrams of caffeine daily, which is equal to four eight-ounce cups of black coffee. But the amount of caffeine varies, depending on the type of coffee, how the beans were roasted or the type of energy drink. <\/p>\n
Ellis has been concerned about people\u2019s gradual increase in coffee consumption over the years, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a reason why they market fast food because if they didn’t, people wouldn’t come and eat it,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause deep down they know they shouldn’t eat it, but then they see all these pictures on the television and magazines and all of that. It really is powerful.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd unless you decide that you’re going to think for yourself, it’s very easy to get swayed to do that.\u201d <\/p>\n
For Beas, it\u2019s not the marketing that draws her to the bucket, as she didn\u2019t know about the TikTok trend. It\u2019s also not because she really needs it to do her job. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a drink, to be honest,\u201d Beas said. \u201cI enjoy the flavor of a Red Bull, so I can drink it five days a week, even if I didn\u2019t work.\u201d <\/p>\n
Within three hours of purchasing, she had already drunk the whole Red Bull tub. <\/p>\n
@DangHLe<\/p>\n
news-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EspressoSelf Cafe is a 1970s-inspired mobile coffee trailer in Fort Worth. The trailer offers all of its beverages…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":101140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,65846,7371,7372,16545,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-101139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-food_and_drink","10":"tag-fort-worth","11":"tag-fortworth","12":"tag-life_and_entertainment","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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