Starbucks lingo

[Talking Hands]

ok, how would I ask for a café con leche but with splenda and soy milk not sugar and milk?

 

[KalamityJane]

Short is a coffee reference from Italy, it is in reference to how long it takes to drink it, I believe. Long takes longer and is more dilute, a short is more concentrated usually.

 

[LucyBC80]

ok, how would I ask for a café con leche but with splenda and soy milk not sugar and milk?

Exactly like you just typed. You don't need to know the lingo, the baristas are extremely nice and will note down your order, give you your coffee with no fuss.

 

[bumbershoot]

Half caf, skinny vanilla, grande...etc. I don't speak Starbucks! Is there a quick course We can take prior to entering the Magic Kingdom? All we want is a decent cup of coffee but we don't want to sound stupid doing it. (posted just for fun)

Just order what you want. They'll translate for you. Some will say it out loud for their own sake or to call it out in the order they are trained to hear it in, but that's not to correct you, it's just to make sure the barista gets it right.

Just order what you want.

After reading all of this Starbucks lingo, I'm so glad I don't drink coffee. It is too complicated.

But it's not.

If I want a drink that is 16 ounces, is iced, and has milk in it, I tell them so. Oh I also get to tell them what KIND of milk.

Sidenote, this is a lovely thing, to have choices in milk types. DH was in Russia for work recently, and apparently all they had at their coffeeshops was WHOLE milk. While Crossfit/Paleo types would jump for joy at that, many others wouldn't, and DH was one of the "wouldn't" group. It was very weird to drink his lattes with whole milk instead of nonfat or 2%.

Ok back to ordering, if I want that drink above, I can say just that. Or I can say iced (because I want iced in it, and saying it first helps them grab the right type of cup from the very beginning...isn't it nice of me to help them get the right cup?) grande (that's cup size, not style) [type of milk] latte (means *milk*, basically).

That isn't complicated at all.

What is complicated to someone hearing it is simply *ordering what you want to have* to the person ordering.

The person thinking "oh that's too complicated, I can't be part of that" is the one making things pretentious. To the ones ordering, they are just getting what they want, which is a pretty simple part of existing.

Feel the same way about Disney too ! I never had a fancy $$$$ Starbucks coffee in my life I can't imagine having to learn a new language at my age I'll probably just point and nod

Hi! You don't have to learn anything. If you want to know what something on the menu is at that time, ASK. You don't have to memorize the list given here. I still don't know what a macchiato is, but if I wanted to know I'd find out by asking a barista. (er, coffee-maker)

As for fancy $$$$ coffee....I went to allears, brought up the menus. Went to the first place I figured would have coffee listed.

ABC Commissary. Coffee - regular or decaf $2.19

That's for *nescafe*. 2.19.

From what people have said, they aren't even grinding beans and putting water over it to make that coffee...people have said that the Nescafe stuff is coffee SYRUP with water. 2.19 for that.

From the menu pictured on the disneyfoodblog, for that same cost I can get a Tall (12 oz) proper coffee, made from beans and everything, for that exact same amount.

Yes please.

Then again I don't particularly LOVE s'bux drip (the Blonde made at home is OK, but there are other coffee types I prefer), so i'll be getting the lattes instead.

I've never been happier to not be a coffee drinker then right now. What a pretentious bunch.

One thing as a non-coffee drinker that I have always wondered, why does coffee come in different flavors besides coffee. Don't coffee drinkers like coffee or are they just doing it for show.

I drink a lot of Iced Tea and I do not understand why so many people have to have it tasting like lemonade. If they want Lemonade why not just order Lemonade? Some of the mysteries of life that I will never understand, I guess.

I don't understand. What do you feel is pretentious about ordering the item you want to drink?

I also don't understand what you mean by iced tea made so it tastes like lemonade? Are you referring to the combo of iced tea and lemonade? Iced tea with lemon squeezed into it? Iced tea made so sweet it's as sweet as lemonade? What are you referring to?

YOU like your iced tea one way. Another person likes it another way. Why do you feel your way is THE way, and everyone else with different tastebuds is pretentious?

Coffee is one taste.

Coffee with milk is another taste. My mom LOVED coffee, the blacker the better. The only way she liked milk in her coffee was when it was iced, and honestly I'm not sure if she made that for her or if I'm remembering that she made it that way for me but thought it was for her.

Coffee with various syrups is yet another group of tastes. It's this AND that. A new flavor. It's OK for someone to like different flavor combinations.

And none of it is pretentious.

Yes, sir...I understand that part. Coffee from different areas would taste different, but still be coffee. I'm referring to things like Hazel Nut or Cinnamon or Chocolate and a zillion of other combinations that I have notice through the years.

It's just people liking different flavor combinations. This should not be news to the world, that people like different flavors.

Last night I got aloo palak from our local Indian restaurant. My son got a curry with chickpea/potato balls in it. We each liked our own meals, and had no interest in having the other person's meal. Different tastebuds = different combos = different orders.

And Americano has just slightly less caffeine in it the a coffee of the same size does at Starbucks.

In general a proper serving of espresso has less caffeine than a proper serving of drip coffee. It's just a more concentrated taste with the espresso.

Pretentious is ordering a Starbucks Reserve Blend Burundi Ngozi made in their $10,000 Clover machine (available only in a few of their stores) and then standing around discussing how much more nuanced the flavors are than coffee brewed in a a normal coffee maker.

Is that more or less pretentious than if you get some Kopi Luwak to brew?

and all of a sudden reading your post I immediately thought of Frazier and his brother Niles in their favorite coffee shop

And those characters probably are what caused the general feeling that the mere act of ordering coffee is somehow pretentious. Everything those characters did was pretentious!

I speak fluent starbucks and am a frequent customer. But sometimes i order in plain english and the employees will just translate for you - so its no big deal to order a small for ex (instead of a tall) or to say unsweetened (instead of no classic). they will order it for you. No worries.

STILL thinking Main Street Bakery featuring Starbucks coffee????

It's beginning to look a lot like Starbucks...

Yes, I'll accept your humble apology

You see it one way, while those of us who are happy about getting rid of Nescafe and allowing us wonderful, glorious options will see it another way.

And one person's list of things offered in general at Starbucks doesn't change what the place IS.

Now yes, a LARGE frapuccino might cost you $4.85 or something like that, but so does a large blizzard from Dairy Queen and nobody seems to complain about that... It's basically a giant milkshake with coffee in it, same thing.

A MEDIUM/Grande Frapp in Chicago tipped over $5 a few years ago and that is before anything was added to 'make it your way' when that campaign began.

That's Chicago. It's not the same here in Tacoma or even Seattle. (it's always fun to have layovers at O'Hare, where we've got Chicago prices PLUS airport prices...so sad because people on layovers in Seattle don't have to deal with airport gouging at s'bux, because they have to charge what the general area charges...one of the things set in place when we got the renovated airport here)

And it wouldn't be Orlando, but it might be Disney. Although we actually KNOW what the costs are! Pictures from disneyfoodblog show that a Tall coffee frap is 3.59, and a Grande is 4.29. To hit 4.99 you have to get a Venti. Plus tax on it all, of course.

...when I was on weight watchers it was 3 points for a tall mocha frap....

FWIW, I don't think that's right unless you're getting everything "skinny". Using a 2% milk, tall mocha without whipped cream, it's 2fat, 42carb, 1fiber, and 3protein, which is 2 points over what you are remembering.

I love the sbux website for their NI!

I see your point about 'prententious', but I see it only relating to the lingo Starbuck's uses for sizes. Why the venti, etc?

Because that's what they came up with. We can order using their words, or we can order using ours. It doesn't make a bit of difference.

If it's first thing in the am after evening EMH, then its: me, coffee, strong, large, I beg of you...

If I have waited too long to get my latte, and that happens on our Saturdays after weigh-in when we get chatty and it's noon when we walk in for our Sat ritual, I swear I need a coffee just to get my brain together to order my coffee.

I've worked it out that what I like is four things, so that's four fingers to hold up as I list it off. If it's the afternoon and I'm just hungry or tired and going in for a decaf, the decaf adds one more. If it's super-cold outside and I'm actually ordering a hot drink, that's one less finger either way. And yes, I do count it off on my fingers as I order.

That is exactly my meaning for using the word "pretentious". If in order to fit in I must memorize some make believe groupings of terminology when what I'm ordering is a small, medium or large coffee, then that is pretentious.

But you do not have to order in any other way than the way you WANT to order.

You might get an extra question of "how many ounces of coffee do you want" if you ask to "supersize it", but my goodness, order what you want however you want to order it.

As you seem to be saying, it's just coffee. Figure out what you want. Order it. They'll work it out so they know what you want, then they'll call the order out in the way that THEY do it (because all jobs have lingo), and then pay and get your beverage. YOU are the one who is overthinking this.

I just order my coffee small medium or large. I refuse to pay their little game.

Go for it! If you want 20 oz and you order a large, though, you might get a 16 oz. Or you might be asked the followup question of what you actually want. Because "large" isn't what they have, so they will want to make SURE they know what you are asking for.

Back when you could order a small, medium, large or extra large without having to have an English to Starbucks dictionary handy, was not pretentious.

Back when Starbucks started, I don't even remember** there being an OPTION for "extra large". Drinks have gotten bigger as we went through the 80s and got the Big Gulp. NOw how big can you get a soda cup at AM/PM? And that's just about when grande and venti came into being.


**and when I say that, I should say...I think the company started when I was a little kid. so I'll say I don't remember people mentioning that XL existed in drink sizes in the early 70s. I know that by the late 70s I never saw an XL drink. By the time the 80s were in full swing, though, YES, drinks were getting bigger.

ok, how would I ask for a café con leche but with splenda and soy milk not sugar and milk?

Ooh now you're asking for Spanish things.

Do you want coffee with room for milk in it, or do you want a blending of hot milk with coffee? The latter is what you're asking for, with "cafe con leche", but it might not be what you WANT.

As for sweeteners and milk, just ask for what you want. I've never used the word "skinny" in my life at a Starbucks. There's no need. Just ask for what you want.

 

[ArchOwl]

ok, how would I ask for a café con leche but with splenda and soy milk not sugar and milk?

You can order it just like that and they will understand, but they will translate it to a "misto", which is Starbucks speak for "cafe con leche". I would probably order it like this "grande (or whatever size) soy misto with 2 ( or how many packets you like) Splenda."

 

[Planogirl]

DH just orders a small coffee and that's what he gets. You don't have to use their lingo.

 

[Schmeck]

There is a reason for the sizes also, that is not pretentious.

Back in the 70's when Starbucks started in Seattle, there was only a SHORT and a TALL. (4oz and 8oz). That was it, two sizes. As they expanded and Americans wanted bigger drinks, they didn't want to change the name of the sizes and confuse people on what they had been ordering, they decided to add a Grande, which just means "biggest". They thought "short, tall, and LARGE" just sounded weird because tall already means large. So they had a short, tall, and grande for years. Then as Americans demanded even bigger drinks, they were totally screwed because they already had a BIG and BIGGEST. So they added the Venti, which is 20 in Italian, for their twenty ounce drink!

Short and tall are heights, if they had used the small, medium, large, etc, that is standard in the US, there'd be no need for the other foofy names.

 

[PeterPanic]

You don't have to play.

I've been going to Starbuck's for years.

I don't drink anything with syrup in it, I've never had a latte, maybe twice a year I like an espresso.

When I order my coffee I order either a "small, medium or large", nobody has ever corrected me and I always get exactly what I want.

No biggie.

To clarify, the pretentiousness comes in when people feel that they have to use the lingo. As I said, I don't drink coffee so I don't have a dog in this race either. It's the use of the words short, tall, grande, verti and barista is what projects pretentious. When all is said and done coffee is hot water poured over ground coffee beans. You want skim milk, regular milk or whatever type of milk, cream or foam along with specific sweeteners, then you ask for that in English. No need to put Italian words in to describe what you want unless you are in Italy. I know that people feel like they have somehow elevated themselves by reciting words and phrases that are substituted for what we consider language, but, in reality it just sounds silly. What you do would not be considered pretentious, its attempting to convince people that you are something that you are not that I can't wrap my head around.

ok, how would I ask for a café con leche but with splenda and soy milk not sugar and milk?

You just did! See how simple that was?

Short and tall are heights, if they had used the small, medium, large, etc, that is standard in the US, there'd be no need for the other foofy names.

Exactly, that is my feeling. Believe me though, I don't lose any sleep over any of it. I just don't go there.

 

[DeaverTex]

I just think it's fun to try to use the jargon, just like eating with chopsticks at a Chinese restaurant. You certainly don't have to, but it's more fun if you do. And when the Starbucks is really hectic (and they usually are when we go into one) you're much less likely to have an order misunderstood if you order using the terminology they use behind the counter.

Neither of us drinks coffee, but we do love an occasional vente non-fat chai latte! At least, that's how we order them. Would any of you Starbucks-savvy folks or barristas like to tweak our syntax there?

And why are they all called barristas? Isn't that a feminine form of the word?

 

[Luvchefmic]

I just think it's fun to try to use the jargon, just like eating with chopsticks at a Chinese restaurant. You certainly don't have to, but it's more fun if you do. And when the Starbucks is really hectic (and they usually are when we go into one) you're much less likely to have an order misunderstood if you order using the terminology they use behind the counter.

Neither of us drinks coffee, but we do love an occasional vente non-fat chai latte! At least, that's how we order them. Would any of you Starbucks-savvy folks or barristas like to tweak our syntax there?

And why are they all called barristas? Isn't that a feminine form of the word?

No, this I know.... male or female Barista is the Italian word for bartender: serving drinks of all kinds including coffee.

Me I'll stick with McDonald's fresh roasted $1.00 any size

 

[Disney_Princess83]

To clarify, the pretentiousness comes in when people feel that they have to use the lingo. As I said, I don't drink coffee so I don't have a dog in this race either. It's the use of the words short, tall, grande, verti and barista is what projects pretentious. When all is said and done coffee is hot water poured over ground coffee beans. You want skim milk, regular milk or whatever type of milk, cream or foam along with specific sweeteners, then you ask for that in English. No need to put Italian words in to describe what you want unless you are in Italy. I know that people feel like they have somehow elevated themselves by reciting words and phrases that are substituted for what we consider language, but, in reality it just sounds silly. What you do would not be considered pretentious, its attempting to convince people that you are something that you are not that I can't wrap my head around.

What exactly are people pretending? That they're a regular Starbucks customer? I'm sorry but it just doesn't make any sense.

And the term "barista" isn't actually a Starbucks word - it is the correct term for a person who professionally makes coffee. Just in case you didn't know that.

As for not using "other languages" - you are aware that a reasonable amount of the English words you use everyday come from other languages? As much as 26% come from Latin origins, at least 25% are from French Origins and at least 26% are from Germanic Origins.

And, if you walk into a Starbucks and ask for a large black coffee - guess what happens? You won't get thrown out, you won't get questioned (except perhaps to confirm the actual size you want), they'll take your order.

Given that you don't even drink coffee I'm surprised that, firstly, it seems to matter to you so much. Perhaps that fact is why you feel this strongly about Starbucks - you've got your mind made up about the store, their staff and their customers before you've even stepped inside?

 

[MagicallyDelicious]

To clarify, the pretentiousness comes in when people feel that they have to use the lingo. As I said, I don't drink coffee so I don't have a dog in this race either. It's the use of the words short, tall, grande, verti and barista is what projects pretentious.

pre·ten·tious [pri-ten-shuhs]

1.
characterized by assumption of dignity or importance, especially when exaggerated or undeserved: a pretentious, self-important waiter.
2.
making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious.
3.
full of pretense or pretension.

How in the heck is ordering something, the way it's written on their menu, considered pretentious? Nobody feels that they have to use the lingo, and even if they did, how in the heck does that make someone pretentious?

I think there is a better word out there for what you're trying to say, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what it is.

 

[SMorgan711]

I wonder if the Main Street Starbucks will have other types of milk besides soy. I would looooooooooove a vanilla almond milk or coconut milk latte. Starbucks was my first latte since they were the only ones with soymilk but I wish they would have kept on the train and offer other types of milk too!

 

[BlackMagicWoman]

Yeah, I'm just ordering coffee. I don't feel special because of it. I guess it can seem pretentious if it isn't something you do everyday. Dunno.

To me it is no more pretentious then when Americans used to ask for things to be Super Sized or McMuffin.

 

[bumbershoot]

To clarify, the pretentiousness comes in when people feel that they have to use the lingo. As I said, I don't drink coffee so I don't have a dog in this race either. It's the use of the words short, tall, grande, verti and barista is what projects pretentious. When all is said and done coffee is hot water poured over ground coffee beans. You want skim milk, regular milk or whatever type of milk, cream or foam along with specific sweeteners, then you ask for that in English. No need to put Italian words in to describe what you want unless you are in Italy. I know that people feel like they have somehow elevated themselves by reciting words and phrases that are substituted for what we consider language, but, in reality it just sounds silly. What you do would not be considered pretentious, its attempting to convince people that you are something that you are not that I can't wrap my head around.

You just did! See how simple that was?

Exactly, that is my feeling. Believe me though, I don't lose any sleep over any of it. I just don't go there.

So a person who feels they have to order a certain way is pretentious. I can see that if a person feels they must use flawless French to order at a French restaurant, when their only reason for doing so is so they look good.

A person who does that because they think they have to, though, isn't pretentious, they are just misguided.

But using words that are on a menu isn't pretentious unless there's some intent behind it. Alas it is very difficult to know intent of a random person you don't know.

I've heard orders that are more complicated than mine. I don't let it bug me though. They just want different things.

If you order using your own words, they translate it into their lingo. If you use their words, you are translating. It's no big deal.

You rail against using Italian but you're cool with someone using Spanish to order? I'm confused.

Another country has come up with words that mean certain drinks. Why reinvent the wheel? Or go for it if you want to, but if others feel like using the words on the menu don't let it bug you. They almost certainly aren't meaning to. They are just trying to get their caffeine fix in a way that tastes good to them.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

You really don't need to worry about the vocabulary. Seriously, it's not really an issue.

 

[bella2117]

As a Starbucks partner it's really easy to just tell the person at the register that your new to Starbucks (if you are) other than that we are happy to help you order. I know for me I always give the person time to order and if it's their first time I love it because I can help them pick what they want and watch as that drink makes their day a little better. I never cared that people said small medium or large. Any partner to get upset about that should not be because it's ridiculous. Also if your nervous about ordering just take a look at the menu online or on your phone beforehand to get an idea of what your in the mood for

 

[flortlebap]

Just walk up to the counter and order........ a coffee.

Watching the inevitable look of confusion on the baristas face is worth the entrance fee. Mind... Blown!!!!

 

[aleksandr]

All we want is a decent cup of coffee

I'm sure this has been said in 7 pages of comments several times, but if you want a decent cup of coffee, Starbucks is not the place to find it

Overpriced and just tastes burnt.

Probably not a lot of choice, but find a Dunkins

 

[MagicallyDelicious]

I'm sure this has been said in 7 pages of comments several times, but if you want a decent cup of coffee, Starbucks is not the place to find it

Overpriced and just tastes burnt.

Probably not a lot of choice, but find a Dunkins

I actually love Sonic's coffee. I would give my right arm to know what brand it is.

I've googled it to no avail. All I ever find, are more people wondering the same thing.