Coffee Drinks for Beginners

Coffee Drinks for Dummies

If you’re new to the coffee world and are looking for a rundown of the most popular coffee drinks here ya go.

This is for the actual beginner. The person who doesn’t even know what coffee is. Okay maybe not that basic but still very rudimentary. So if it sounds like I’m talking to you like you’re 10 and a half, it’s because you are. At least in coffee years.

In the world of caffeine, we have what I like to call the “unholy trinity”. That includes the latte, mocha, and americano respectively. They are unholy since they aren’t actually Devine beings and instead are beverages. Don’t think about it too hard.

Latte: 

This is the most basic drink you could order at a coffee shop. If someone came up to me and said “16oz iced vanilla” I would know that it was a 16oz iced vanilla latte. That’s just how it goes. The basic recipe for this drink is 2 shots of coffee for every 14oz of milk. They come heated or iced, and you can add any flavor you want to them. That goes for every drink actually.

Mocha: 

This is like the latte except for one key detail, you add chocolate syrup. It’s basically an adult hot chocolate. People who order these act like grown children so I guess it fits (it’s a joke, gosh). Anyways, you literally just add about a tablespoons worth of chocolate syrup to a regular latte and *BAM* mocha. You can even mix it up by making it white chocolate, or doing a ‘zebra’  and going half regular and half white chocolate. (Note: ‘zebra’ can also be called ‘black n’ white’, ‘penguin’, ‘panda’, etc.) Don’t get too wild with these, you might drop a crayon on all that sugar.

Americano:

Here comes the change-up. Americanos are almost completely different from the other two. The main similarity is that they all contain coffee. A fact that I would hope you could surmise on your own, but you know what they say about assuming… the biggest discrepancy between americanos and the other two is the major lack of milk. The general recipe for an americano is 2 shots for every 14oz of water. An intangible amount of cream may be added upon request, generally falling under the same category of measurement that “a dash”, or “a smidge” belongs to. Complete lunacy if you ask me. But I guess enough people hate themselves (or love the taste of coffee) enough to order this drink quite regularly.

There ya go, a full run-down of the three most frequented coffee related beverages! Next up: why what you just read doesn’t matter! 😉