“Trump’s America, man,” said a barista, Dan Foley, also 31.
Greg Steltenpohl, a co-founder and the chief executive of Califia Farms, which makes almond milk, argued that the latest debate was overblown. He pointed out that the Department of Agriculture found last year that 90 percent of households that bought alt-milks also purchased dairy milk.
“The real world is less polarized than the politics make it out to be,” he said.
Mike Messersmith, who runs the American operations of Oatly, said his company’s oat milk had gone from 150 coffee shops to 2,000 in just one year and was now being sold in Whole Foods and Target. Early next year, Oatly, which is based in Malmo, Sweden, plans to open a factory in southern New Jersey, its first in the United States.
The American dairy industry’s attempt to enforce labels is incongruous, Mr. Messersmith said. “In an era when the government is dialing back regulations, this seems like an odd anomaly,” he said. “The dairy lobby certainly is very well established.”
At Swallow Cafe in Williamsburg, the baristas sell soy, almond, coconut, macadamia and oat milk, as well as a cannabis-infused latte. “We’ll still call it milk,” said Mark Garza, 31, who is the manager. “Everybody’s going to call it that.”
In San Francisco’s Mission District, a barista who said she goes by Bridget Awesome, 24, was working the counter at Haus Coffee. The shop sells something called veggie milk, made of ingredients that she said she could not quite identify. (It is pea milk.)
“I’ve got so many milks it’s absurd,” she said. “People ask me for my preference, and I say: ‘Milk. I think you should get milk.’”
