Even the baristas can’t tell me. At one of the Starbuck’s I frequent, they automatically stick a little plastic “swizzle stick” in that tiny hole in the lid of the to-go cup. Why?
At my favorite one, they never do, although they’re there for folks to grab if they want. some people automatically put one in.
So I asked - “what’s that do?” and no one knows.
Let’s hear from the folks who use them to find out why. Inquiring minds want to know. something about the foam?
Shamefully trivial.
I don’t go to Starbucks - don’t have them here - but isn’t it to stir the sugar?
I just figured it was to help the coffee stay hot longer or to keep it from spilling on you before you are ready to drink it.
No, it’s much sillier than that. It’s like a little lid for the drink-hole, and only sticks down about an inch, if that. I’m wondering if it’s to keep foam from overflowing, or reduce little dribbles when taking it out to your car.
These are only three inches long, they are not sugar stirrers. The coffee top is already on when they pop in these little spears.
And there are two holes in the top - the bigger one to sip through so that little hole’s being plugged isn’t going to keep it warm.
Anyone work at Starbuck’s who knows what these are for?
It’s called a splash stick, at least around here. It’s designed to keep the coffee from splashing out while driving it home. A couple of good bumps on the road can make an impressive puddle on my center console.
Frivolous, but quite useful.
They don’t? I smell a business opportunity. 
Seriously, the baristas weren’t told what they are? They are to stop the coffee from floofing out as you drive.
Exactly. It isn’t that much of a problem for black coffee, but everybody orders a megafrothycrappaccino, extra foam these days and the slightest bump can cause that concoction to foam out the hole and all over your cup holder.
Are we talking about this thing?
As others have said, it’s a plug to prevent spills.
Well, then. Ban the sploosh sticks, then.
Huh…weird. Twice in the past couple weeks I’ve read about these things on two different message boards, and I’ve never seen them before. I’ve been in Starbucks (Starbuckses?) plenty of times before, all over the country (well, 90% in the northeast, anyway) and never encountered them before.
I’m in the northeast, some have them and use them, some have them and don’t use them, and some don’t have them at all.
I’m talking from NYC to Boston corridor. I regularly get a vente size thing with foam - depending on the time of day it might be a macchiato (not sweet), or a latte, and I never use a stick and I drive - no foam problem. a solution for which there is no problem in my opinion.
I also go to a non-Starbuck’s upper-scale coffee house where they make designs in the macchiato and there is lots of foam. No sticks.
They are told what they are in my neck of the woods.
They tried and failed. Or more precisely - they tried, people liked it, local entrepreneurs copied their business model, the copies were better, Starbucks folded.
Ah, obviously no one here has ever been the low man sent out to get coffee for bigwigs.
You use stoppers when you are schlepping around two drink trays full of lattes and mochas and americanos that you don’t want to spill or spill on the top. Because you will get yelled at. Or fired. Or both.
Bucks?
Maybe it’s regional. Here, they’ve been around for years. I initially wondered what they were for, but when I spilled hot coffee (just plain ol’ coffee, which is all i get there) on myself walking home, I figured it out. (My initial encounters with the stick had me throwing it away upon receipt of the coffee.)
I use the sticks because when I walk with a cup of liquid the liquid shoots up out of the hole in the lid onto my hands, gloves, sleeves, chest. There’s something wrong with the way I walk that makes it incompatible with lids with openings.
Did Lieutenant Starbuck have a specific question?
I always wanted to know where he got those damn fumerellos from.
