The next time you stop in to pick up a latte at your favorite coffee shop, there are a
few things you might want to know that have been hidden from you.
Here's a look behind the counter at the secrets of some popular coffee chains.
Sometimes you wake up in the morning, but you just can't seem to get over that sleepy
brain fog.
So you head to the coffee shop and you order a larger cup than usual, thinking that the
extra caffeine is exactly what you need to perk you up.
Unfortunately, it might not work out that way.
According to experts quoted by Market Watch, you might get more caffeine if you order a
larger size of plain black coffee.
But when it comes to drinks like cappuccinos, you get the same amount of actual coffee no
matter what size cup you order.
For example, Starbucks' caramel macchiato contains two shots of espresso whether it's
grande or venti.
The extra space in the cup is just filled with extra foam or milk.
"Venti is large."
"Mm, no.
Venti is twenty.
Large is large.
In fact, tall is large, and grande is Spanish for large."
The same goes for Peet's Coffee, where both the small and medium-sized lattes contain
two espresso shots.
To avoid this, don't rely on the menu for help.
The artsy descriptions of the drinks usually don't include how many shots of espresso are
in each cup, so the only way to know is to ask the barista directly.
According to a 2017 report by Business Insider, not all coffee is created equal.
It turns out that different chains have widely varying amounts of caffeine in their java.
If you typically get your coffee from one place, but then try a new spot one morning,
you may find that their coffee leaves you dragging, or bouncing off the walls a bit
more than usual.
This could put a huge cramp in your daily routine, or it could keep you up all night.
To give you an idea of the different levels of caffeine coffee can have, a McDonald's
McCafe medium-sized coffee has around 145 milligrams of caffeine per serving.
Tim Hortons' medium coffee, meanwhile, has closer to 205 milligrams.
Peet's has 267 milligrams, and the ubiquitous Dunkin' Donuts has a whopping 302 milligrams.
Starbucks tops all of these with a teeth-chattering 330 milligrams, but The Coffee Bean & Tea
Leaf has three milligrams more, just barely edging out everyone's top competition and
making it the most caffeinated coffee on Business Insider's list.
"Put that coffee down!"
Coffee addiction is a hard habit to break, and it can be a very costly one.
It seems to be getting more and more expensive every day, especially when it comes to specialty
or artisan drinks.
There's a reason for this that many people aren't aware of.
According to Market Watch, some coffee is actually underpriced just so that chains can
overprice other items.
Coffee beans are becoming more expensive, as are add-ins like sugar, milk, and cream.
On top of that, even regular black coffee is becoming more artisan and being crafted
by people who have a lot more experience than other baristas, so they have to be paid more.
In order to make up for the rising prices of supplies and higher wages, the price of
a regular black coffee is kept to around $2 to keep customers coming back.
But the prices of specialty drinks are being increased to $5 or more.
And since a lot of customers come in looking for something fancier than just plain coffee,
a store is able to make up for lost money by selling more of the specialty brews.
For most people, coffee is best served hot.
But for those who enjoy a cold drink to sip on instead, there are several types of iced
coffee available in most stores for these people to get their caffeine fix.
Unfortunately, though, these iced coffees are a great way to get ripped off.
According to a Dunkin' Donuts worker who posted on Reddit, the chain's iced coffee is brewed
in water and then extremely watered down.
And this kind of thing doesn't just happen at Dunkin'.
Iced coffee is inherently prone to being watered down because of its very nature.
Ice melts, and this leads to the coffee flavor getting more diluted as time wears on.
You may notice that your iced coffee tastes more watered down the longer you have it,
but sometimes it even comes out of the machine that way.
This is because some chains just let the iced coffee sit behind the counter for hours.
Starbucks employees who posted on Reddit say that they let it sit for up to four hours
at room temperature or eight hours in the fridge.
This means that it's already degrading when you get it.
This is even more common if you get an iced coffee during the winter, when it's not as
popular.
If you find yourself skipping plain coffee and ordering lattes or blended coffee drinks
at your favorite shop, you're probably making a wise decision, but not for the reason you
think.
Many coffee chains use over-roasted coffee beans, sometimes called burned coffee beans,
because it makes it impossible to taste the quality of the bean itself.
The coffee roasting process turns green coffee into a flavorful, aromatic cup of joe by cooking
the beans at high temperatures.
After the roasting process, the coffee falls into a variety of categories: either light,
medium, or dark roast, depending on how long the beans are roasted.
Light roasts retain more flavor from the original bean, while darker roasts tend to taste burnt.
And that's dark roast coffee's biggest benefit.
If you can't taste the original bean, you've succeeded at covering up defects in the original
coffee.
The shop doesn't have to invest in high-quality coffee beans, and you'll still get your caffeine
buzz.
Dissuading you from ordering a bitter, burnt cup of coffee isn't bad for the chains, either.
Drip coffee isn't the greatest money maker when compared to more expensive menu items,
after all.
They can't charge as much, many chains allow free refills, and it has to be dumped out
and rebrewed every couple of hours.
Coffee can get pretty lonesome all by itself.
Thankfully, most coffee shops have scones, croissants, muffins, and other delicacies
at the counter, just begging you to buy them.
But you might actually be better off avoiding them.
According to baristas quoted by Market Watch, these sweets are hardly ever made in-house,
and they're usually not very well-made at all.
They may not even be fresh, as they could be sitting under the glass for a while, just
getting stale.
Furthermore, these cakes and muffins can also be extremely unhealthy.
Some small scones have more than 500 calories, which could blow a typical person's daily
allowance hours before lunch.
This doesn't even take into account all the sugar and fat in these sweets.
If you add that to whatever sugar and cream you have going on into your coffee, you could
be staring down a pretty bad stomach ache by lunchtime.
Some chains are looking into offering healthier options, but in the meantime, you might want
to skip the muffin and just stick to your latte.
"Can I have a small latte?"
"No, no, no!
MacGruber would never order that."
We might not want to think about it, but people who work in the food industry have plenty
of opportunities to spit in the food of customers who are rude to them.
Most baristas probably wouldn't take it that far, or at least we hope they wouldn't.
But they do have secret ways of getting revenge on people who aren't very nice to them.
"Don't f--- with people that handle your food."
One common way that baristas carry out their vengeance can be described with three letters:
DTB, which means "decaf that b----."
In other words, your regular coffee is replaced with decaf, depriving you of that all-too-necessary
morning caffeine buzz.
"Can you take half of the regular version of the coffee and mix it with half of the
decaffeinated version, or is that, is that just too weird a thing?"
Another even sneakier way baristas get revenge involves lining up the drinking hole in the
lid of the coffee cup with the seam of the cup itself before handing it over.
This results in the coffee leaking and dribbling down the faces of customers every time they
take a sip.
How devious!
It doesn't take a genius to know that we all need to be doing more to save the environment.
Every year, humans produce way too much paper and plastic waste that could easily be avoided
by simply reusing the same cup more than once.
To encourage this recycling, many coffee chains offer discounts on your daily coffee if you
bring in a reusable cup, even though they probably don't expect many people to take
advantage of that incentive.
This could add up to a lot of money saved per year, and coffee addicts should look for
discounts everywhere they can get them.
Starbucks, for example, offers a deal in which you can get 10 cents off each cup of coffee
if you bring in a reusable cup.
Ten cents might not sound like much, but those dimes can really add up over time.
If you get a coffee every day and save 10 cents each time, that adds up to more than
$30 per year.
That's not too shabby.
Another added bonus of reusable cups and containers is that they're typically made of sturdier
material than paper.
Thus, they keep your coffee hotter for much longer.
So you can sip it slowly, savoring both the flavor and the fact that you're on your way
to saving a ton of money, and maybe even saving the planet.
It's no big deal to get a refill on your soft drink at a fast food restaurant or even some
gas stations.
But what about at a coffee place?
As it turns out, you can get refills at Starbucks for only 50 cents as long as you're still
in the store.
This applies to both iced and hot coffees, which is a pretty great deal, considering
that that first cup isn't always cheap.
And Starbucks isn't the only chain that offers this kind of discount.
Reddit users who have discussed this topic can say from experience that many major and
minor chains offer discounted refills, or even free ones.
The price for a second helping depends on several factors, such as the quality of the
coffee.
In general, the higher the quality, the higher the cost of a refill.
Then, there's the type of coffee shop.
Small, locally owned shops tend to charge more per refill while more middle-of-the-road
shops offer free refills on some coffees.
And it also depends on what coffee you originally ordered.
If you get a regular black coffee, you can probably get a free or low-cost refill, but
something like a French roast may cost you the same as your original order.
It's just a fact that specialty drinks cost more than regular plain cups of black coffee
or espressos.
But there's another fact that coffee chains would hate for you to find out.
If you really want a specific drink but don't want to pay full price, you can cheat the
system by ordering espresso in a cup and adding the rest of the ingredients yourself.
To make your own latte, for instance, order two shots of espresso in a regular cup.
Then you pour your own milk and sweetener into the coffee, making a DIY latte that saves
you lots of cash.
Even if it amounts to just a few dollars, that can really add up after a while if you
make the same drink every day.
You can pull off another trick by asking the barista to pour you a small sized coffee drink
in a large cup.
This might make you look a bit strange.
But thanks to human beings' primal instincts that tell them to fill up whatever is in front
of them instead of leaving half the cup empty, you'll probably end up getting more than the
small amount at no extra cost.
After you get your small-in-large order, head to the bar and add your own milk, and voila:
you've mastered the art of coffee hacks!
"This is, excuse me, a damn fine cup of coffee!"
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