Speak Starbucks-speak!
June 10, 2008
If you’re like me, you have to write down your Starbucks order. Luckily, just about every Starbucks barista has been trained to press the “feed” key on the receipt printer and give me a slip of paper and pen even before I need to ask for it. But then I spend what feels like a minute scrawling down my entire order. Even more time when I’m ordering for several people. And then I see the barista scribble the entire order into a few letters on each cup.
I’ve always wanted to learn the Starbucks language. And now, thanks to Adam, here’s a list of the symbols, letters, and numbers that Starbucks baristas use when writing down your order — and that means you and I can just jot these down and give the barista our order.
“Venti iced X 2 TN N WC(with slash) M” — ahhh, that felt sooo good.
When using letters / numbers from this list, I’ve noticed that baristas tend to follow a particular order: first, let them know the size (venti etc), then whether it’s iced, then decaf, then shots, then syrup, then milk, then custom, then finally the drink itself.
I’ll update this list as I get more information, and/or move this to a separate page.
Happy imbibing! And tell me in the comments what your favorite drink is, in Starbucks-speak.
DECAF:
(none) – regular strength
X – decaf
1/2 – half / half
SHOTS:
(none) – the standard
1 – single
2 – double
3 – triple
4 – quad
5 – 5 shots
6 – 6 shots
SYRUP:
(none) – none for me
V – vanilla
H – hazelnut
TN – toffee nut
C – caramel
P – peppermint
A – almond
R – raspberry
SFC – sugar free caramel
SFH – sugar free hazelnut
SFV – sugar free vanilla
1PV – one pump vanilla (you can add 1P in front of any of these syrups like 1PR, 1PSFH)
2PV – two pump vanilla (you can add 2P in front of any of these syrups like 2PA, 1PSFV)
MILK:
(none) – the standard
2% – 2% milk
1% – 1% milk
N – nonfat
S – soy
O – organic
B – breve
CUSTOM:
(none) – none
R – room (space on top for you to add milk yourself)
R (with slash thru it) – no room
WC (with slash thru it) – no whipped cream
WC – with whipped cream
XH – extra hot
XF – extra foam
F (with slash thru it) – no foam
D – dry
W – wet
XD – extra dry
CR – with caramel sauce
2/3 full – 2/3 full
DRINK:
L – latte
M – mocha
A – caffe americano
BC – brewed coffee
PM – peppermint mocha
WM – white chocolate mocha
C – cappuccino
E – espresso
CH – Tazo chai tea latte
HC – hot chocolate
WHC – white hot chocolate
PHC – peppermint hot chocolate
CM – caramel macchiato
EM – espresso macchiato
CDL – cinnamon dolce latte
GL – gingerbread latte
SFGL – gingerbread latte with sugarfree syrup
SFCDL – cinnamon dolce latte with sugarfree syrup
PSL – pumpkin spice latte
CAS – caramel apple spice
VCR – vanilla crème
BT – iced black tea
PT – iced passion tea
GT – iced green tea
PTL – Passion iced tea lemonade
GTL – Tazo green tea latte
CF – coffee Frappuccino blended coffee
CRF – caramel Frappuccino blended coffee
MF – mocha Frappuccino blended coffee
STCF – strawberries and crème Frappuccino blended crème
VBF – vanilla bean Frappuccino blended crème
CFL – coffee light Frappuccino light blended coffee
CRFL – caramel light Frappuccino light blended coffee
EGF – eggnog Frappuccino blended coffee
PMF – peppermint mocha Frappuccino blended coffee
CHCF – Tazo chai tea Frappuccino blended crème
DCCF – double chocolate chip Frappuccino blended crème
JCF – java chip Frappuccino blended crème
VBFL – vanilla bean light Frappuccino light blended creme
June 10, 2008 at 11:06 am
Cool – I would appreciate knowing what Earl Grey is (its about the only thing I’ll drink). I assume its EG? :)
June 10, 2008 at 11:07 am
LOL, Alison! I think you’ll have to spell Earl Grey out :-(
I do know that Starbucks’ DoubleShot has an abbreviation – I think it’s DS, but I’m not sure.
June 10, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Been doing this a long time… BUT it doesn’t work at Safeway?! Guess they have their own code.
Me = Venti N CDL w/ WC
June 10, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Spelling out Earl Grey is rather boring, no? I would like to be right up there with you coffee drinkers and write in geeky code.
And coffee, ugh. How can anyone actually drink the stuff? Become an hon. Brit for the day!
June 10, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Don Cullen had a good idea – Order your starbucks custom rechargable gift card with your coffee preference on it!
http://www.doncullen.net/?p=64
June 11, 2008 at 12:30 am
Tall, CM, SFC, N WC
Wow, this is easy. And I might take up on that “business card” idea by Don Cullen!
I usually order during off-peak hours (ah, a perk of having an odd job!) so I usually scribble: “tall caramel macchiato” and let them bullet-riddle at me– “Whipped? Sugar-free? 2% milk? Soy?”
Err… I can ask for Soy? Oh cool.
I remembered once I did ask for soy milk for me Frappuccino and they looked at me as if I have sinned. “You cannot add soy to Frappuccino. It won’t… taste good.”
“Oh. Fat-free, then.”
June 11, 2008 at 12:33 am
ONE MORE THING–
Could anybody explain to me the difference between caramel syrup and sauce?
I was asked this ONCE by a location that I don’t frequent and I was so lost so I just stumbled “um uh sauce, I guess?”
June 12, 2008 at 6:40 am
This entry is cool, not to mention eye-opening…it’s gotta be tough to be a barista. The baristas at my corner Starbucks tell me that they also aim to memorize the order of roughly a hundred regular customers.
If I understand this list correctly, my usual order would be a tall 1/2 A. Not too exciting, but thankfully not too expensive, either.
Unfortunately, my work has taken me for a two-month excursion to the eurozone, where the dollar isn’t worth much. In the interests of finding a coffee shop where I could just sit with a book and some caffeine, I went to one of the local Starbucks and paid $4.50 not once but twice for mere cups of coffee…nothing elaborate like a triple latte with extras. After walking out of the shop, I did some mental currency conversions, realized what I had done, and swore a mighty oath. With fortitude, I will avoid Starbucks until I need to put in some long hours back at the office in the States.
June 27, 2008 at 3:37 am
I’m looking forward to the day when I can use the Starbucks drive thru. Why do only hearing people get to use the drive thru?
June 27, 2008 at 7:17 am
Zooey – oh, deaf people CAN use Starbucks’ drive-thru (and any other drive-thru’s). Just write down your order, get in the drive-thru line, skip the menu / loudspeaker, and give the person in the first window (or only window) your written order. Took me a long time to get used to doing it this way myself, but my partner has been doing it for years. Now that we have two young kids, drive-thru’s are a BLESSING! :-P
June 28, 2008 at 12:10 am
Ok! I’ll try it next time. Thanks
June 30, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I order a Green Tea Frap w/ SOY all the time! At least in LA, they don’t look at you funny or judge you for it … LOL
July 19, 2008 at 2:12 am
well for the caramel sauce vs caramel syrup, the syrup is concentrated and used for the actual drink. the sauce is just caramel in a squeeze bottle for topping purposes
July 19, 2008 at 7:08 am
Thanks, Trainee – that makes perfect sense now!
December 7, 2008 at 11:05 am
Whipped Cream is technically “WC!”, though some baristas get lazy and lose the punctuation.
February 19, 2010 at 4:23 pm
My usual is a social drink (i.e. no caffine) and it’s a non-fat, tall, decafe mocha with no whip, no foam, extra hot and stirred. I get some dirty looks from barristas about the “stirred” part but they don’t all do it and then I get too much syrup at the bottom of the cup / end of the drink. But today I had the captial letter “T” in a circle on the sleeve of my cup. Never seen that before and it isn’t on your list. Was it a leftover from an aborted order? What does it mean? Cheers
April 17, 2010 at 1:24 am
the caramel sauce is thicker and contains dairy, the syrup is just a sugary flavouring
April 27, 2011 at 2:08 am
Don’t forget about MIS – Caffe Misto, otherwise known as a Cafe au Lait.