love of my life

Coffee tidbits culled from online searching in the midst of pulling an all-nighter :)

from "Ask the Barista:"

-->Starbucks coffee tastes like crap!

You're welcome to your opinion. I like the stuff myself, but despite my time in the green apron I'm no connoisseur. I wouldn't turn up my nose at Folgers Singles -- well, not much. There are several reasons some people don't like our coffee. For example, Starbucks coffee is roasted about twice as long as most other coffees. Is this over-roasting it? Beats me. If it's too strong ask for a cup of "mild" coffee (which will be something like Lightnote or Breakfast Blend) and see if it's any better. Or perhaps you got a bad batch. Or it was a kind of coffee you just didn't like. (I noticed, for example, that whenever our regular coffee of the day was the 30th anniversary blend, sales of mild coffee jumped dramatically.) Or maybe it is crap. Who knows? It's all a matter of taste. I wouldn't say McDonald's is haute cuisine, but that doesn't stop them from serving Billions & Billions. Likewise, whether the coffee is "crap" or not, people buy it, and they come back for more. And Chicken McNuggets are really good with honey.


-->What do you have against Frappuccinos, anyway?

Your average barista is usually not very fond of these, and it's hard to say exactly why. They're quite easy to make, rarely involve espresso, don't require steaming milk ... it's just a matter of throwing the ingredients in the blender and blending. They're fairly tasty, and most employees and ex-employees have a favorite frap or two. So why don't we like them? Well, for one thing it's a favorite drink of the Trendy Teenagers who pour forth from their Junior High schools and High schools, make sure they are Seen entering Starbucks, and commence to order a Trendy Drink. Fraps are also a way of drinking coffee without tasting it, which is kind of cheating in some eyes. One learns to instinctively know who's going to order a Frappuccino, and dread evil frap rushes. The closest analogy I can come up with is being a bartender and dealing with a constant flow of orders for little blended girly drinks. (To be honest, though, I don't know whether bartenders hate making girly drinks like I hate making fraps)


-->Sometimes I hear the people behind the counter saying strange words. What do they mean?

There is a certain amount of lingo involved in being a barista, even beyond what's on the menu, and it varies from area to area or even store to store. Allow me to explain a few.

Traditional or Drip: Plain coffee.
Addshot: An extra shot of espresso added to a drink. Usually you'll hear this when someone orders a Frappuccino with espresso; the person taking the order will call something like "Can I get an addshot?" to let the person at the espresso bar know they need to make an extra shot.
For-Here: Served in a ceramic cup rather than a paper one, or in the case of pastries, served on a plate rather than in a bag.
Zebra: A drink made with half regular mocha, half white mocha. Not all stores use this.
Frap rush: Sometimes a group of people will come in, like high school students, and all order Frappuccinos. This is a frap rush.
COD: Coffee Of the Day. Again, plain coffee.
Spin: Every ten or fifteen minutes, one of the baristas is supposed to go through the lobby of the store, bus the tables, wipe and restock the condiment bar, check the bathroom, and just generally neaten up. This is a spin, also known as a lobby or the fifteen minute timer.
Shots pulling long or short: Starbucks standards require that an espresso shot take between 18 and 23 seconds to pull. This requires some skill on the part of the barista using the machine (if it's an old-school La Marzocco machine and not one of the new push-button Verissimos) and is very susceptible to the crankiness of the device, the grind of the beans, the firmness of the tamp, etc. Short shots are a bit sweeter (like ristrettos), long ones are a bit darker, but technically only 18-23 second shots are supposed to be served unless the customer specifies otherwise.


from "O Chef:"

The Monumental Difference Between Latte and Cappuccino

What is the difference between caffè latte and cappuccino? When I have asked at various coffee spots, I seem to get different answers!



You know, those little 17-year-old all-knowing snobs who stand behind the counter and deign to serve you are trying to confuse you, trying to instill a sense of mystery in an overpriced product that will keep you guessing and coming back for more. We can’t do anything about the price, but at least we can help clear up the mystery. In this case, it’s a matter of proportion — latte has more milk.

In this country, cappuccino is a serving of espresso (about 2 ounces) with essentially similar amounts of milk and a rather stiff milk foam. Caffè latte is a serving of espresso with about three times as much milk, topped with a short head of foam. So a latte is milder and has a milkier taste.

While Starbucks has imposed rigid standards at every store in its chain, in practice in other coffeehouses and restaurants around the country, these drinks can vary substantially, and a cappuccino at one place could be similar to another coffeehouse’s latte, or even weaker. But not necessarily less expensive....



Can anyone else tell that I would rather be doing something else than working out an annotated bibliography for my Chaucer class...?