You steam the milk to a higher temperature. It’s not exactly rocket science.
Yeah, they seem to have a standard order in which they read the options. Listen to how they read it aloud and you’ll learn it. They’ll still make your drink if you order it the wrong way round, but it definitely makes them hesitate a bit more as they’re mentally reordering (and I’m guessing makes them that much more likely to get a complicated order wrong).
I mostly just drink brewed coffee now (gotta watch those calories), but if I remember right the order is:
triple venti nonfat no whip white chocolate peppermint mocha.
Actually, that might be slightly non-canonical, since peppermint is a syrup, whereas “white chocolate mocha” is the base drink, so to speak. So maybe it should be:
triple venti nonfat no whip peppermint white chocolate mocha.
[Denis Leary] “D’ya have some… I dunno… COFFEE-flavored coffee? C’mon, man, I just want a normal cup of actual COFFFFFEEEE…!”[/Denis Leary]
I have Coffee-Snob relatives… from Seattle. I cringe when they visit and we stop for coffee in our Midwest medium-sized town. Because not only will they mystify the kid behind the counter with a litany of fast-barked Pacific Northwest coffee idioms, but they’ll inevitably make a face when they take their first sip.
The first time I was in a Starbucks (in Vancouver) I ordered what the coworker I was with suggested and got what to me was a diluted cup of coffee. I think it was mostly milk.
Since then, the few times happenstance has landed me in a Starbucks I’ve always said something like “a small cup of coffee” and that’s what I got. No stares, no questions.
I suppose there’s probably something they sell other than just plain coffee that I would enjoy, but I wouldn’t even know where to start and I’d probably end up ordering some terrible combination that would get stares. 
Put me in the camp wondering where all of these clueless baristas are.
I don’t even drink coffee (can’t stand it and hate the smell) but I love my wife so occasionally I find myself in a Starbucks or Peet’s getting something for her. Early on all the tales of how difficult it is kind of had me intimidated. But never once have I had issues with simply saying “medium drip coffee” and getting something that I assume was correct since my wife has never complained.
Emboldened by my success I finally got complicated with the order, and they still do fine: “medium drip coffee, room for cream.”
That said, I do assume that most people who go to these places don’t like coffee any more than I do since everything they order involves making the result taste less like coffee and more like milk and sugar.
Yeah, I don’t believe that ever happens, or if it does it’s not the coffee part of the order that would be confusing, but something else in what the customer says.
People just like to complain about Starbucks. It’s the same as when some people bitch about having to pay “$5 for a cup of coffee,” which is a complete lie.
You can make that even more complicated by requesting 1% milk (they don’t keep 1% around; they make it custom by mixing nonfat and 2%). Even better would be half 1% and half soy (my husband, a Starbucks barista, just cringed when I said that). He says that in this case, requesting the milk be a specific temperature, such as 190 degrees, is even worse: a) it messes up the barista’s regular rhythm, and b) the more you steam it, the harder it is to get no foam. Also, milk starts to stink if it gets too hot.
Oh, he also said that he has a PITA customer who asks for her drink stirred with a silver spoon. :rolleyes: She has them add honey to her drink - another high-maintenance thing - and apparently the wooden stir sticks don’t do the job.
So, adding honey to the above drink, and asking that it be stirred, would also make it even more complicated.
If you want to really confuse them at Starbucks, ask for a large coffee.
The answer?
I’m not sure what the steamers at Starbucks look like, but if they’re the normal type, it shouldn’t be difficult to keep an order “no foam” with hot milk. You just bury the nozzle to steam the milk up to the temp. You’ll get some bubbles, but not really any foam. And, if you do happen to get some foam, just hold it back with a spoon. I always found that milk that was too hot was difficult to foam.
In addition to the “Role Models” scene, there was a “Citizen Dog” strip where Mel and his dog, Fergus, go to a coffee shop. They ask for regular coffee and the baristas are completely clueless how to make one. The baristas guess and they end up with huge cups with whipped cream on top. Unfortunately, I never saved the strip, although I wish now that I did, so I can’t link to it by date. However, it’s one of the strips that stuck with me as I thought how complicated coffee was getting.
:rolleyes:
Order a short fat cap. It just feels politically incorrect and some of the looks I get seem to bear that out.
Can you define “short fat cap” for those of us that don’t speak barista?
Hm, I’ll check with him later (it’s his day off, so he’s asleep now!). He said last night that the longer you steam something, the more bubbles form whether you want them to or not, so you have to let the drink sit (I don’t know how long) so the bubbles will rise to the top and you can hold them back.
He may also have been assuming, based on this thread, that the customer was one of the picky whiny types who, when they say “no foam,” means “not one single bubble, dammit.”
Small, whole-milk cappuccino, I believe.
“Engineering! Route power from warp modules through the impulse engines and reinforce the deflector shield! Communications! Set up a visual channel between Holodeck 3 and the bridge of that Raptor! Mr. Worf, go disguise yourself as the Romulan Praetor, and report to Holodeck 3! Your mission is to convince our friends that their Supreme Leader is our hostage! Geordi, please get down to Ten-Forward and ask Guinan to bring me a cup of tea. Oolong.”
Now, off to see what anybody else thought was a complicated Startrek order…
That would be “Earl Grey, hot”, not Oolong.
:eek:
I guess it’s too late, now that I’ve read the thread, to just say nm, isn’t it?
Anyway, this happened on a day that Picard had the flu. Riker was giving the order, and he likes oolong.
Excuse me; Oolong.
Well, in keeping with the thread, Cmdr. Riker really should order a coffee, shouldn’t he…?