Tenor leaving coffee behind (4)
I believe the answer is:
late
'behind' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'tenor leaving coffee' is the wordplay.
'tenor' becomes 't'.
'leaving' is a deletion indicator.
'coffee' becomes 'latte' (I've seen this before).
'latte' with 't' taken out is 'LATE'.
(Other definitions for late that I've seen before include "Recently deceased" , "Running behind time" , "near the end" , "Recently dead" , "Far on in the day" .)