Deciphering the Local Coffee House Menu

Specialty Coffees from Americano to Cappuccino to Macchiato

Jul 14, 2009

Long gone are the days when a cup of coffee was just a cup - yes, 8 ounces - and your only other ordering decision was whether to add milk or sugar. Those were the days!

When you enter your local coffee house today you might hear the guy in front of you order an Americano; the gal in front of him wants a macchiato; and you’re not sure if you should have a caffè latte or a misto! If you’re not up on the latest coffee-ordering lingo, and you wonder what started it all, here’s a quick look at some popular spots and how they started. You can also brush up on some coffee house terms to be sure you get the hot tall cappuccino, extra dry, you really want, rather than a grande espresso macchiato, wet!

Dunkin Donuts: Original Coffee House

Dunkin Donuts was the first of the current chain of coffee houses offering much more than the standard cup. Founded in 1950 as a donut shop in Massachusetts, today it’s one of the world’s largest coffee and baked goods chains with about 6,500 franchised restaurants in the U. S. and 2,400 more across the globe.

While donuts have always been the chain’s specialty with an overwhelming 52 varieties to choose from, ordering coffee there is completely user-friendly. A no-gimmick approach offers hot coffee in 4 sizes: small (10 oz), medium (14 oz), large (20 ounces), and extra large (24 oz); iced coffee, iced tea, and its frozen blended iced Coolatta drink stick to the same basic measurements. A caffè latte, hot or iced, and cappuccino are the only specialty coffees offered.

Peet’s Coffee and Tea: Spearheading the Revolution

The current crop of coffee houses serving Italian- and French-inspired coffees owes a lot to Alfred Peet, who opened his first coffee store in 1966 in Berkeley, California. Peet is credited with spearheading a revolution in the industry because his style of coffee brewing emphasized roasting superior quality beans in smaller batches and using a darker roasting style that produced coffee with richness and complexity.

By 1969, Peet’s Coffee & Tea became a gathering place for coffee devotees and inspired a generation of coffee entrepreneurs, including the founders of Starbucks, whom he supplied with Peet’s roasted beans during their first years of operation.

Also uncomplicated, Peet’s brewed coffees sell in small (12 oz), medium (16 oz), and large (20 oz) sizes, but espresso beverages have 2 shots added to small and medium drinks, 3 shots to the large. Three of the most requested drinks — café au lait (coffee with steamed milk), cappuccino (espresso, steamed milk, and foamed milk in equal parts), and caffè latte (espresso with steamed milk) — are also the base for drinks like a latte macchiato (a shot of espresso “marked” with a little foam), caffè mocha (espresso, cocoa, and steamed milk topped with whipped cream), and white mocha (the same but with white chocolate).

Peet’s also specializes in European style black teas, oolongs, green teas, and herbal infusions as well as tea coolers (tea blends with lemonade or limeade) and tea freddos (frozen tea drinks blended with flavors like mango, berry, and Japanese matcha).

Starbucks: Italian Roots

Starbucks began its journey into coffee house stardom in 1971 in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Originally called Starbuck’s Coffee, Tea and Spice Company, the founders were determined to source, roast, and sell the highest quality arabica coffee possible. In 1984, after touring coffee houses in Milan, the company began to specialize in Italian-style coffees and served its first caffè latte in 1984.

Today, with close to 16,000 outlets around the globe, Starbucks is the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world with 30 blends and countless single-origin coffees. In keeping with its Italian influences, Starbucks coffees are made by baristas (experts in making espresso and espresso-based drinks) and sold in sizes called short (8 oz), tall (12 oz), grande (16 oz), and venti (20 oz). In Italian, “venti” means 20. Starbucks ordering etiquette is supposedly designed to speed things up, so in addition to knowing exactly what drink you want, follow this plan:

4. Request “dry” for more foam, less milk; “wet” for more milk, less foam

The copyright of the article Deciphering the Local Coffee House Menu in Coffee is owned by Margaret Johnson. Permission to republish Deciphering the Local Coffee House Menu in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.