Much of the recent growth in the high-end coffee market in New York can be traced to Starbucks. New Yorkers were warming to the idea of sophisticated coffee before the Seattle company entered the city in the mid-1990s, with chains like New World Coffee, Cooper’s Coffee and Oren’s Daily Roast starting to pique the interest of coffee drinkers for a taste beyond watery diner coffee and the traditional “regular” cup from street carts, laden with milk and sugar. But Starbucks saturated the market, opening up its first New York store in 1994 with plans to have 100 outlets in Manhattan within four years. (There are now nearly 200.) That created a huge market of consumers who would no longer tolerate subpar coffee — but it drove most of the smaller chains out of business. By ALISON GREGOR The New York Times October 11, 2011 Small coffee chains, benefiting from lower retail rents and a seemingly bottomless thirst for high-end coffee even in a weak economy, are sei...