CHILLIN' OUT WITH A CUP JOE; L.A.'S ICED CAPPUCCINOS OFFER FROSTY RELIEF.

Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

On a week when you could fry an egg on asphalt in much of the Southland, thousands have kept cool with a nice cup of joe.

Well, sort of. The trendy iced coffee drinks popping-up in outlets from Starbucks to 7-Eleven, and which trace their roots to the L.A. Olympics a decade ago, have little in common with the lowly cup of Italian roast.

The sweet, slushy beverage was invented in 1984 at the University of Southern California's Olympic village, where the campus's food and beverage director noticed a hot cappuccino cart in the school's main quad sold plenty of drinks in the cool morning hours, but next to nothing as temperatures rose.

Fearing a loss on the portable venue, the manager created a simple, cold cappuccino drink using coffee, crushed ice and plenty of cream and sugar.

``And that's where the industry learned how to sell coffee as a cold beverage,'' said Ted Lingle, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

Genealogy wasn't on the mind of patrons at a Starbucks in Woodland Hills this week, which by geography and happenstance is typically one of the hottest spots in the Valley.

Dr. Matt Young, a burn doctor at Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks, was lingering over a tall Frappuccino trying to cool off. ``They're cold, it's hot, and they taste good,'' he said.

And if it stays this hot, Young said Wednesday, ``I could drink one every day.''

The iced cappuccino - the broad category into which all these drinks fall - has ``hit a critical mass this summer,'' Lingle said.

Under various guises, Lingle said, the drink is expected to generate $300 million in sales this year, up from virtually nothing in the early 1990s.

That sort of growth has created a proliferation of providers. ``Everybody has their own version now,'' said John Anderson, spokesman for ice cream retailer Baskin-Robbins. Since its launch four years ago, Baskin-Robbins' Blast line has come to account for 10 percent to 12 percent of in-store sales, Anderson said.

Because of their success with the public, iced cappuccino drinks have emerged as the coffee industry's first viable competitor against colas. And unlike previous flash-in-the-pan wonder drinks such as the wine cooler, analysts say cold cappuccino has legs.

``It's taken a while to unlock the key to serving cold coffee to Americans, but my feeling is these products are here to stay,'' said Gary Hemphill, vice president of New York-based Beverage Marketing Corp., which tracks the drinks industry.

Because they're so tasty, some worry the caffeinated drinks will grow a little too popular, especially among children.

``We're concerned they're designed to seduce kids into drinking them,'' said Patricia Lieberman, staff scientist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C. ``There's nothing good in coffee for kids and most don't need a mildly addictive stimulant drug in their food.''

And in the hot summer months, drinking too much of any caffeinated beverage can lead to dehydration, health officials warn.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO (Color) Matt Young sips an iced coffee, a beverage invented in Los Angeles, while listening to his cellular phone at Starbucks in Woodland Hills.

Tina Gerson/Daily News