Complicated Starbucks Orders Is A Language I Don’t Speak None To Good

I dutifully have memorized the 14-word instruction to get my daughters favorite Starbuck drink juuust right

Andrew Donaldson
5 min readAug 25, 2024
Photo by 4028mdk09, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I do not drink coffee. I don’t like coffee. Long before I was medically banned from drinking coffee, I still didn’t like coffee. Personally, a food product whose production is more similar to making asphalt for paving than a tasty, refreshing beverage isn’t for me. Frankly, Starbucks is closer to a milkshake shop than the coffee bars of Europe that the Seattle-based bean slingers cosplay as.

But my family members like Starbucks; thus I dutifully have memorized the 14-word instruction to get my daughter’s favorite Starbuck drink juuuust right, and found its place on the menu for a helpful reminder. Personally, I always order a large ice water which has the benefit of being both free and a rebellion against the asinine pseudo-word sizing the Great Green Coffee Menace tries to foist upon the populations. I do like a few of the food offerings but often they are passed to me so over-microwaved a period of time must pass before actually eating them.

Turns out, the complicated Starbucks orders aren’t just annoying, they are beginning to be a drag on business:

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Andrew Donaldson

Writer. Mountaineer diaspora. Veteran. Managing Editor @ordinarytimemag on culture & politics, food writing @yonderandhome, Host @heardtellshow & other media