SAN JOSE, Calif. -- When Frank Nguyen launched Academic Coffee in downtown San Jose nearly a decade ago, his goal was simple: bring a great neighborhood cafe to a city that didn't have many. He couldn't have imagined that nine years later, his small-batch, from-scratch approach would make him a national trendsetter -- all thanks to a banana.

Last October, Nguyen and his team at Academic Coffee introduced what would become their signature creation: the Banana Cream Pie Latte. "Originally, we were trying to come up with a different drink for the holidays," Nguyen recalls. "We did all this testing for it, and we actually gave up on that drink. But we created this base cream, and our head culinary expert said, hey, can I try something? She added banana to our cream base, and the whole team l

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