6 Thursday April 28 2022 | the times
the table
Could you
be any
more of a
pumpkin
spice
latte-type
person if
you tried?
Are you a Sue Gray
(Americano) or a
Taylor Swift (latte)?
What your coffee
says about you
The Partygate interrogator has been spotted placing
her order in Pret — and it tells us a lot, says Polly Vernon.
Here’s what a person’s beverage reveals about their character
Oat flat white people (like me)
Fancy themselves as rather more
sophisticated than latte people: we
actively like the taste of coffee, yeah?
Don’t need to smother it in three
quarters fluffy milk to one quarter
espresso proportions, thanks; and
don’t even get us started on
cappuccino people! Also? We’re not
one of those who believe we’re
getting more bang for our buck in a
longer, milkier drink (an approach to
coffee ordering which strikes us as
terribly cheap and terribly vulgar).
As for the oat milk aspect: there
are those among us who like how
it tastes, those who like that it’s
significantly lower in calories than
whole milk (me), those who like
how it sounds at the point of order
(staccato! Also me), and those who
go on and on about how plant milk
substitutes are better for the
environment and give Paddington
Bear stares at all who insist on
ordering cow’s milk, even now, who
are basically the 2022 equivalent of
takeaway disposable cup people
(definitely not me. I don’t care). You
might also think of oat flat white
people as “exactly the right amount
of fancy”; heaven knows, that’s what
we think about us.Extra-hot people
The configuration of their order is
irrelevant, latte, flattie, whatever-ie;
all that matters is that it arrives “extrahot”, and they’ll lean in over the
counter fretfully to ensure the barista
has understood that they want it
“really, really hot. No. Really hot!”,
which is charming, and not at all
annoying, to either the barista
(who heard them perfectly well the
first time), or all those queueing
behind them, desperate to get their
order in, if only the muppet in front
would stop monopolising the server’s
time. Extra-hot people are the coffee
equivalent of those who show off
about how much chilli they can
tolerate; flavour is irrelevant, heat
is all. (A barista who is not Max
once told me he and his colleagues
judge the extra-hot brigade
fiercely, because all you’re doing is
overheating the espresso so that
it burns the coffee, destroying the
flavour of the bean.)Cappuccino people
Only really in it for the chocolate, and
literally everyone knows it.Caramel latte, pumpkin spice
latte, any form of syrup-in-
your-latte people
The syrup-laden latte is the coffee
order equivalent of an alcopop. It’s
for people who also eat the icing
straight off the top of a cupcake, then
leave the cake. Or who would rather
just be downing WKD, but don’t want
to be left out of the fractious early
morning Costa queue experience.Disposable cup people
Indulging enduring fantasies first
awakened by the opening credits of
Cagney & Lacey.Taylor Swift: iced
caramel latte with
two sweeteners
A
single tweet —
posted at 8am
yesterday,
Wednesday,
April 27, 2022 —
may have justified
(in one fell tweet)
the $44 billion
Elon Musk stumped up for the rest
of Twitter. It was the work of the
journalist @Tony_Diver, and it read:
“Just seen Sue Gray in the queue for
Pret. Black Americano. No sugar, no
messing around. Ruthless.”
Honestly? I’m hard-pressed to
think of a better use of social media
— possibly, of the entire internet.
Because: what pithy insight this offers!
Sue Gray ordering a black Americano
in Pret A Manger weeks before
finishing and releasing a report that
might bring down the prime minister
of the United Kingdom is the civil
servant equivalent of a mobster doing
a line of cocaine before shooting up
the headquarters of a rival gang. It is
assured, forceful, determined, with a
touch of stone-cold fury about it. It is
more than a little terrifying. No milk
shall deaden the impact of Sue Gray’s
caffeine hit. No sugar shall soften its
sharpest edges. Flavoured syrups?
Sue Gray laughs at flavoured syrups!
Decaf? Sue Gray can’t begin to
understand the point!
This is wild conjecture, obviously,
but who among us hasn’t found a form
of identity, of personal expression, a
conscious or unconscious declaring of
our very souls, in our coffee order?
Equally: who hasn’t observed a raging
coffee cliché in the order of another?
Who hasn’t stood behind some punter
in the queue for Pret, or Starbucks, or
Costa or insert name of your
preferred artisanal independent coffee
outlet here, bonus points if it features
a pun and thought: Dear Lord! Could
you be any more of a pumpkin spice
latte-type person if you tried?
Can you predict what your next
customer is going to order just by
looking at them, I ask Max, barista in
my preferred artisanal independent
coffee outlet.
“Oh yes!” he says. “Within reason.
I mean, look at you! I’d know you were
oat flat white, even if I didn’t know you
were oat flat white.” I tell Max this is
unfair; I’ve been through a decade-
long journey to find my True Coffee
Identity, one which started out as a
Starbucks skinny latte, evolved into
independent flat white after a Times
commission to train as a Starbucks
barista for a day (reader: I was not a
natural), and culminated with the
switch from cow to oat milk about
five years ago, after Max’s now-boss,
the proprietor of my preferred
artisanal independent coffee outlet,
assured me I’d like it better, which,
it turned out, I did.
Max (25, Gen Z, I believe) tells me
he has observed a generational divide
in other people’s orders. “The older
ones generally stick with a latte or
a cappuccino. They’re not really
prepared to pronounce foreign words,
but feel on safe ground with ‘latte’.
Foreigners tend to go neat espresso.. .”
Your classic Sue Gray! I say. “Who’s
that?” Max says.
Max hasn’t yet had the opportunity
to make coffee for anyone from
Hollywood, all of whom (if media
accounts are to be believed, and why
wouldn’t they?) have dramatically
different orders, which nonetheless
nestle under the umbrella of coffee
order profile: “Tell me I’m special
without telling me I’m special but
instead remembering my convoluted
coffee requirements.” Mary-Kate
Olsen has a venti sugar-free vanilla
skim latte; Nicole Kidman, a triple
grande skim wet cappuccino; Renée
Zellweger, a grande extra-hot vanilla
latte with cinnamon; Britney Spears,
a venti extra caramel Frappuccino;
John Travolta, a double espresso
(which he calls “a Phenomenon”, but
should henceforth be known as “a
double Sue Gray”); and Taylor Swift,
an iced caramel latte with two
Sweet’N Low artificial sweeteners.
But what might we ascertain about
the characters of others, based on
their coffee order alone?
I’m so glad you asked!Rishi Sunak:Bluetooth smarttravel mug, £180