The Secret Starbucks Cappuccino | Will Work For Food
I’m not a Starbucks fan, but some people can’t help it. Actually, if the coffee machine at work is broken carte noir I sometimes have to settle for Starbucks since it’s the closest place to my office (although a Coffee Bean is scheduled to open in a month or two…) carte noir
Here’s a little secret that Starbucks doesn’t want you to know: they will serve you a better, stronger cappuccino if you want one, and they will charge you less for it. Ask for it in any Starbucks and the barista will comply carte noir without batting an eye. The puzzle is to work out why.
The carte noir drink in question is the elusive “short cappuccino” at 8 ounces, a third smaller than the smallest size on the official menu, the “tall,” and dwarfed by what Starbucks calls the “customer-preferred” size, the “Venti,” which weighs in at 20 ounces and more than 200 calories before you add the sugar.
The short cappuccino has the same amount of espresso as the 12-ounce tall, meaning a bolder coffee taste, and also a better one. The World Barista Championship rules, for example, define a traditional cappuccino as a “five- to six-ounce beverage.” This is also the size of cappuccino served by many continental cafés. Within reason, the shorter the cappuccino, the better.
Why doesn’t Starbucks feature the short cup on the menu? They claim that they don’t have enough carte noir room on the menu boards. And the Slate article mentions that the short can’t be found on their website or other signage either. But the real reason?
Economics has the answer: this is the Starbucks way of sidestepping a painful dilemma over how high to set prices. Price too low and the margins disappear; too high and the customers do. Any business that is able to charge one price to price-sensitive customers and a higher price to the rest will avoid some of that awkward trade-off.
Oh, and you also might want to know that apparently Starbucks baristas will make anything you can think of. They technically aren’t allowed to say “no” to something they’re capable of making. So let your mind go crazy and watch the baristas go nuts.
The administration just put a Starbucks carte noir on my campus and despite the fact that they are a fairly earth and worker carte noir friendly company, many of us were angry that the student body wasn’t confirred. I am happy to know there is such a thing as a “short” and I will pass this on to my Starbuck’s carte noir frustrated friends.
I’m a barista. And it’s customers carte noir like you that make me want to go home and kill myself. You’re twisted. Yeah we have a short size that we don’t advertise, that’s not the barista’s fault though is it?
i love the arrogant tone of this little article, like this person thinks carte noir they know some inside information that no one else knows. truth is, baristas PREFER to make short drinks because it’s much less milk to steam. and as for trying to make them go nuts, try to think of a drink more complicated than we’ve thought of before. go on, try it
As for making your barista go nuts, that too, was a joke. And as for your barista never saying “no” well apparently they will. I’ve had a delicious iced cappuccino from The Coffee Bean, and I’ve asked my Starbucks barista to put a cappuccino on ice for me and they refuse. I’m not really sure why…if they can make a cappuccino why can’t they put it over ice?
maybe YOU like to get a short cappucino, and maybe YOU like to taste the espresso, but the average customer where I live wants 20 ounces of mocha, whole milk, and extra whip cream. They don’t even want to taste the espresso. They laugh about how absurd carte noir little our short cups are.
As for the iced cappuccino thing: the only difference between a latte and a cappuccino is how the milk is steamed and the amount of foam. There is no steaming or foam involved in an iced drink. That is why the baristas stare blankly carte noir at customers when they order an iced cappuccino. Try asking for an iced latte instead (it will be the same as the thing you get at the coffee bean).
Good Lord. Bingo on the iced cappaccino. Please, if you order one of these, know what you’re ordering. Of course, they could just make you your iced latte, call it an iced cappaccino and let you on your merry way. And as far as the “Short” goes, this WAS on their menu at one point. Short, Tall, and Grande. That wasn’t enough for the crazy coffee people and so they added a Venti and took the short off the menu. People who haven’t been to Starbucks before, like 1993, or whatever year that was, might not know that the Stort is an option, but if you listen to customers, a lot, a TON, of people order shorts. Why does everything about Starbucks have to be drama with peopl
