Would you swap a Starbucks coffee for a McDonald's coffee?

[Dive Bar Casanova]

I love like this morning.

Its 3 hours before sunrise, the dog jumps in the back seat of the truck, I put on music like:

,,,,, and head to Starbucks.
Yeah their coffee sux but like the randy sailors say “it’s the only brothel in town.”

 

[Mountain Cat]

I had a similar exchange with a Starbucks employee when trying to order a simple white coffee:

---Me: "Hello. I'd like a medium white coffee please."
Them: "We don't do a white coffee. Do you mean a latte?"
---Me: "No, just a white coffee please." <smile>
Them: "Oh, you mean a 'Flat White'. Okay. No problem."
---Me: "No, I don't want a 'Flat White'. I just want a white coffee please."
Them: "Well, I'm sorry, we don't have a white coffee."
---Me: "It's coffee with a bit of milk in. Surely you can make a white coffee?"
Them: "Ohhhhhhh. I see. Yeah, we can do that. What you want is an Americano."
---Me: "Americano?"
Them: "Yes. A black coffee and you put your own milk in if you like. It's over there, behind you."
---Me: "Erm, okay, then yes - please can I have a medium one of those."
Them: "We don't have a 'medium'. Do you mean 'Tall'?"
---Me: <banging head on counter in exasperation> "YES. Yes. That will do. Thanks."
Them: "Okay. Great. No problem. Did you want decaf?"
---Me: <almost explodes!>

Hmm, I never heard of a coffee with cream being called a "white coffee" before, though it probably makes sense, since i order my coffee "black".

The whole Starbucks size terminology throws me off. I always order things there by small, medium, or large, and the staff knows what I mean.

Rather than McDonald's or Starbucks, I prefer to buy my coffees at independent coffee shops or diners. At Starbucks, my order of preference is their iced green tea, unsweetened. Yes, overpriced , but can't seem to find anything that good elsewhere. McDonald's is only good for clean restrooms on road trips.

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

Hmm, I never heard of a coffee with cream being called a "white coffee" before, though it probably makes sense, since i order my coffee "black".

The whole Starbucks size terminology throws me off. I always order things there by small, medium, or large, and the staff knows what I mean.

Rather than McDonald's or Starbucks, I prefer to buy my coffees at independent coffee shops or diners. At Starbucks, my order of preference is their iced green tea, unsweetened. Yes, overpriced , but can't seem to find anything that good elsewhere. McDonald's is only good for clean restrooms on road trips.

When I'd visit my Grandmother in Milford, Mass it was called a regular coffee. That meant, I think I remember correctly, with cream and sugar.

At home we usually had cappuccino. My dad still has grandmothers cappuccino machine. Pressure gauges, water level sight glasses, peened copper and brass plating, levers with burled handles and safety valves.

A marvelous show when that contraption fires up. The character of the whole house changes. Rotation of the earth slows down. Had to go to Italy to get replacement parts pre internet.

My dad still uses sugar cubes. Yeah, you can still find them. It's part of the ritual.
I feed them to the wild horses and burros in the desert. Or did. Wife strictly says only carrots to the full grown animals now. Nothing to the newborns to yearlings.

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

I was at Starbucks some years back and ordered a " a regular Vente dark roast."
Damfino why but I said "regular." Ya cream and sugar your own coffee there at that time.

So I walk with my coffee over to the repair station where you add your own cream and sugar and a guy sitting next to it asked if I was from Massachusetts because I said "regular" coffee.
He was from Wrentham Mass and was the boxing trainer of Laila Ali. I got to exchange greetings with her too.

 

[TastyReuben]

That's one thing I'll mention about coffee - I can usually make do with a lot of things: overcook my egg, undercook my egg, I can deal with it and eat it. Same with a steak, or bacon, or if the vinaigrette is a little too sharp or too sweet, I can make do.

Give me a cup of coffee with sugar in it? That'll get spit right back into the cup, the cup emptied in the nearest appropriate place, and I'll feel the need to brush my teeth twice to get the taste out. There's something about sugar and coffee that just assaults my tastebuds.

White coffee...that's not uncommon here, but I think it's seen as a more old-fashioned term, especially since the rise of coffee culture the last 25 years or so. "Light coffee" is synonymous with that. I still see that on coffee vending machines (when I can find one of those relics - highway rest stops and hospitals, mainly). My mom will still ask, "Do you want any lightener?" when pouring a cup of coffee.

When we lived in the UK, I'd occasionally be asked if I wanted my tea white, meaning with milk. I remember the first time that happened, neither MrsT nor I knew exactly what the woman offering us tea meant.

And yes, we can still get sugar cubes here, but only in white sugar. I like the brown stuff, like turbinado sugar or Demerara sugar. I can't find that in cubes very easily.

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

That's one thing I'll mention about coffee - I can usually make do with a lot of things: overcook my egg, undercook my egg, I can deal with it and eat it. Same with a steak, or bacon, or if the vinaigrette is a little too sharp or too sweet, I can make do.

Give me a cup of coffee with sugar in it? That'll get spit right back into the cup, the cup emptied in the nearest appropriate place, and I'll feel the need to brush my teeth twice to get the taste out. There's something about sugar and coffee that just assaults my tastebuds.

White coffee...that's not uncommon here, but I think it's seen as a more old-fashioned term, especially since the rise of coffee culture the last 25 years or so. "Light coffee" is synonymous with that. I still see that on coffee vending machines (when I can find one of those relics - highway rest stops and hospitals, mainly). My mom will still ask, "Do you want any lightener?" when pouring a cup of coffee.

When we lived in the UK, I'd occasionally be asked if I wanted my tea white, meaning with milk. I remember the first time that happened, neither MrsT nor I knew exactly what the woman offering us tea meant.

And yes, we can still get sugar cubes here, but only in white sugar. I like the brown stuff, like turbinado sugar or Demerara sugar. I can't find that in cubes very easily.

When relatives visit from the UK they don't like anything sweet for breakfast including sugar in their coffee or tea. If a donut it's a plain cake. Plain, no sugar pastries. They say that's kind'a how it rolls with most people in the UK.

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

Another old thread comes back from hibernation.
If I go to Starbucks, it is for a special treat. My favorite is the Caramel Macchiato. For a regular cuppa' Joe, I go to McD's.

CD

Isn't their a TV sitcom actor named that?

 

[Mountain Cat]

When I'd visit my Grandmother in Milford, Mass it was called a regular coffee. That meant, I think I remember correctly, with cream and sugar.

At home we usually had cappuccino. My dad still has grandmothers cappuccino machine. Pressure gauges, water level sight glasses, peened copper and brass plating, levers with burled handles and safety valves. A marvelous show when that contraption fires up. The character of the whole house changes. Rotation of the earth slows down. Had to go to Italy to get replacement parts pre internet.

My dad still uses sugar cubes. Yeah, you can still find them. It's part of the ritual.
I feed them to the wild horses and burros in the desert. Or did. Wife strictly says only carrots to the full grown animals now. Nothing to the newborns to yearlings.

I got hit a few times by "regular coffee". For me, I thought it meant plain. No sugar, no milk. This was mostly okay when I didn't care (unless the coffee was really bitter) about having milk or cream or not in my coffee. But adding that sugar made me want to yell at them! That's an ADDITION, not anything remotely "regular".

 

[Mountain Cat]

That's one thing I'll mention about coffee - I can usually make do with a lot of things: overcook my egg, undercook my egg, I can deal with it and eat it. Same with a steak, or bacon, or if the vinaigrette is a little too sharp or too sweet, I can make do.

Give me a cup of coffee with sugar in it? That'll get spit right back into the cup, the cup emptied in the nearest appropriate place, and I'll feel the need to brush my teeth twice to get the taste out. There's something about sugar and coffee that just assaults my tastebuds.

Agreed, and also with tea. Even more so there.

I drove down to New Orleans for a get-together the year before Hurricane Katrina. I stopped off at a small town in Mississippi. After getting my motel room, I noted there were two eateries - A Burger King and a Chinese restaurant. Hating fast food, I picked the latter.

The woman (who was ethnically Chinese) served me a cup of hot tea. LACED with sugar.

I enquired - they had NO unsweetened tea there. (Which is why I mentioned her ethnicity.) I declined the tea, switched to water, and from that initial experience, ordered the most bland thing on the menu - beef and broccoli. Shoulda gone to Burger King.

Yep here - DO NOT EVER EVER PUT SUGAR In my tea. The only place in coffee where one can get by is in coffee ice cream.

 

[TastyReuben]

I got hit a few times by "regular coffee". For me, I thought it meant plain.

I'll add another take: if someone were to ask if I wanted "regular" coffee, I'd assume they meant size, as many things here are sometimes sized as "small, regular, large."

Sugar in tea, I'm fine with, but if it's standard black hot tea (the now-ubiquitous English breakfast tea), I prefer it without.

We're drinking a lot of Christmas tea blends right now, and those really need a bit of sugar, to bring out the cinnamon and orange that's usually in those. On the rare occasions I drink some kind of herbal tea, like mint or ginger, I also like a touch of sugar in those.

 

[mjd]

That's one thing I'll mention about coffee - I can usually make do with a lot of things: overcook my egg, undercook my egg, I can deal with it and eat it. Same with a steak, or bacon, or if the vinaigrette is a little too sharp or too sweet, I can make do.

Give me a cup of coffee with sugar in it? That'll get spit right back into the cup, the cup emptied in the nearest appropriate place, and I'll feel the need to brush my teeth twice to get the taste out. There's something about sugar and coffee that just assaults my tastebuds.

White coffee...that's not uncommon here, but I think it's seen as a more old-fashioned term, especially since the rise of coffee culture the last 25 years or so. "Light coffee" is synonymous with that. I still see that on coffee vending machines (when I can find one of those relics - highway rest stops and hospitals, mainly). My mom will still ask, "Do you want any lightener?" when pouring a cup of coffee.

When we lived in the UK, I'd occasionally be asked if I wanted my tea white, meaning with milk. I remember the first time that happened, neither MrsT nor I knew exactly what the woman offering us tea meant.

And yes, we can still get sugar cubes here, but only in white sugar. I like the brown stuff, like turbinado sugar or Demerara sugar. I can't find that in cubes very easily.

I am not a big coffee drinker but will have it every now and then. I have a neighbor that offered me a cup. I asked for two creams, two sugars. He gave me a cup of sugar with coffee in it. He literally puts in about a 1/4 - 1/3 cup of sugar in a standard sized mug. He drinks about 3 pots of coffee every morning. He buys 5-8 bags of sugar every two weeks.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Yes I would!! Starbuck's coffee is grossly too strong!!

 

[caseydog]

That's one thing I'll mention about coffee - I can usually make do with a lot of things: overcook my egg, undercook my egg, I can deal with it and eat it. Same with a steak, or bacon, or if the vinaigrette is a little too sharp or too sweet, I can make do.

Give me a cup of coffee with sugar in it? That'll get spit right back into the cup, the cup emptied in the nearest appropriate place, and I'll feel the need to brush my teeth twice to get the taste out. There's something about sugar and coffee that just assaults my tastebuds.

White coffee...that's not uncommon here, but I think it's seen as a more old-fashioned term, especially since the rise of coffee culture the last 25 years or so. "Light coffee" is synonymous with that. I still see that on coffee vending machines (when I can find one of those relics - highway rest stops and hospitals, mainly). My mom will still ask, "Do you want any lightener?" when pouring a cup of coffee.

When we lived in the UK, I'd occasionally be asked if I wanted my tea white, meaning with milk. I remember the first time that happened, neither MrsT nor I knew exactly what the woman offering us tea meant.

And yes, we can still get sugar cubes here, but only in white sugar. I like the brown stuff, like turbinado sugar or Demerara sugar. I can't find that in cubes very easily.

In Spain, I learned about Cafe con Leche. Very strong coffee mixed 50/50 with milk, and usually drank with sugar. Wow, I loved it. The coffee has to be really strong, almost like espresso, for this to work.

CD

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

I'll add another take: if someone were to ask if I wanted "regular" coffee, I'd assume they meant size, as many things here are sometimes sized as "small, regular, large."

Sugar in tea, I'm fine with, but if it's standard black hot tea (the now-ubiquitous English breakfast tea), I prefer it without.

We're drinking a lot of Christmas tea blends right now, and those really need a bit of sugar, to bring out the cinnamon and orange that's usually in those. On the rare occasions I drink some kind of herbal tea, like mint or ginger, I also like a touch of sugar in those.

The size / content conflict reference might be why Starbucks has their own names.
Like A&W drink sizes were baby bear, momma Bear and Poppa Bear.
Maybe that’s a stretch. Yeah, that’s a stretch.

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

We have 5 Starbucks in my general vicinity. Maybe a couple more if you include grocery store locations. Most are closing early or not opening at all some days because of lack of product. No pastries and they run out of coffee.

Gas station coffee tastes better, usually Farmer Bros and the gas station has decent pastries. Save $5 over Starbucks on top of that.

Sometime I have to pay for Starbucks out of pocket and I tip generously all the time. Those baristas aren't there because they want to be. Body in motion all the time, or sent home.

A wealthy friend is beside himself I do business at Starbuck. I usually have free cards from my sis, or patients give them to my wife as thank you's.

Wife doesn't drink coffee so I use them and buy her something else of course.
But still, he doesn't want me drinking Starbucks.
Crazy world full of crazy people.