Starbucks – Coffee for People who Hate Coffee

# Brew coffee. Throw it away. Keep the slurry in place.

# Refill the water tank. Brew again.

# Dilute with plain water until it tastes like American beer. Dilute again.

Some other day I’ll tell you how to make creamer from materials legally available in Europe. You’ll get plenty of it, because this whole thing involves a visit to a construction supplier :)

Have you never stared at a menu and wondered how much shrimp a particular shrimp dish actually contains?

Drip coffee has about 18mg caffeine per oz
Espresso has 50mg caffeine per oz

These numbers are obviously rough indicators and can vary a lot by brew strength.

But as you can see – Espresso is stronger, but you drink much less of it.

So an 8oz coffee will have slightly more caffeine than a double Americano. And people get at least a 12oz drop (“Tall”), which has a LOT more caffeine than a double Americano.

That said – I think Americanos TASTE stronger because of the bitterness of the espresso.

“Early next week I hope to add another post about the diagrams in which I hope to do a few things:

* Release the source files under a Creative Commons license so others can extend and localize the diagrams.
* Offer a PDF that contains all the diagrams.
* Give a little story about the design process that led to their creation.
* And possibly offer shirts and mugs through a print-on-demand service, time permitting.”

Say what you will about Starbucks, but as a dude who works for them now, and has worked for an indy shop before, totalling 2 years in the business, here is my conclusions:

1. Starbucks regular coffee and beans are .excellent. compared to most shops, and also stored in better conditions, brewed more frequently in-store (for freshness,) and they actually are a socially responsible corporation.

2. Aside from that, if you want a good espresso based drink, go elsewhere. If you want your shitty cappuccino in under 3 minutes from when you walk through the door, go to Sbux. Sbux is low-quality drinks (aside from the regular coffee) made quickly and consistently with superior customer service. That’s why they’re taking over the world. Nobody gives a shit how close to perfect their latte is. Before I worked for Sbux, I’d never have served the latte’s we routinely serve customers.

However, if I actually make a customer a proper latte, they look at me like I have two retarded heads. No Foam. Evar.

3. Americanos are stronger than brewed coffee. Try it yourself. Regardless of what those stats say. I don’t know who’s brewing those espresso shots, but they’re doing it wrong.

4. An espresso shot should use the same amount of coffee (and have the same caffeine) as an 8 oz drip. The water is just forced through, not dropped through. Also, it’s ground much finer.

Peeeeeeace.

To #2: ‘Americano’ gets its name from the fact that people in other countries didn’t brew ‘drip’ coffee the way we Americans do, and this is a similar drink. However, different brewing methods (espresso vs. drip vs. French press, for instance,) using the very same beands will yield very different flavor profiles and consistency. Also, paper filters (used in drip but not espresso or presses) take away some of the oils that make coffee flavorful.

#3: I don’t know where the link is.

Further, in every Mocha I’ve ever made, I’d put the chocolate in first and pour espresso over it.

Additionally, anybody drinking the amount of chocolate shown there in their Mocha’s is gonna have a hell of a sugar rush to deal with. I give this graphic a thumbs down for being worthless in attempting to draw comparisons between the options.

-ss

The problem these days is that most places use too much milk and foam relative to the espresso.

A traditional Cappuccino is roughly 5 oz total, I believe (give or take an ounce).

But a Cappuccino from Starbucks, for example, is served in a 12 oz cup and the cup is usually FULL. Thus, the milk/coffee ratio is way too high and it actually feels and tastes like a latte.

I prefer my Cappuccinos on the dry side anyway, which is even less steamed milk than shown in the picture.

Anyway people should not know what’s in the coffee, it’s up to the barman to know, and he should not bug the customers with unnecessary details

That is their bad. Slight variation is inevitable but a purposeful variation should not be called by a classic name (the variation should be noted). The fall of an artform is a sad thing to see.