The most bizarre orders baristas get
By now, in the Randstad, I act as if ordering a coffee with oat milk is completely normal, and I don’t really need any more craziness than that. But ask a few highly seasoned baristas about the most bizarre coffee requests they get, and a whole vat of hilarious stories opens up. These were the funniest ones:
High maintenance
‘Four elegant ladies who managed to order four different micromanaged versions of coffee with milk: one extra hot “regular,” one extra hot with soy milk, one decaf extra hot with extra foam, and one decaf soy extra hot with no foam. And it wasn’t even a Starbucks!’
Foot bath
‘The order itself was fairly normal, namely a filter coffee, during the morning rush with a line of 10 people. But the situation that followed! The woman who ordered the coffee didn’t look entirely fresh, admittedly, but she wasn’t bothering anyone, so we let her do her thing for a bit. After a few minutes, my manager came over to us: did we know who the woman was who was standing in the bathroom washing her feet..?’
Is that a hand blender in your pocket?
‘What we thought was a pretty ridiculous trend in general were bulletproof coffees: coffee that you stir a knob of butter into so you absorb the caffeine faster. Why would you want that?? Anyway, a man ordered an espresso and went to sit in a corner with it. After a while, a colleague thought, “what’s that noise?” The man was making the bulletproof coffee for himself with his own blender and butter—something we hadn’t been able to serve him.’
Light, my foot
‘I’m hardly surprised by anything anymore; people come up with the strangest things, and the challenge as a barista is to make them as delicious as possible. But what I do find difficult are orders with skim milk, but then with whipped cream and syrup… If you’re going to make it a party anyway, you might as well go all in!’
Devilish dilemma
‘This was a very special one, especially because the person who ordered it actually knew quite a bit about coffee. A cappuccino with… Tabasco. They knew that milk burns above approximately 70 degrees, but still wanted an extra-hot cappuccino. So the choice was either a cappuccino that was less hot than desired or the not-so-great taste of burnt milk. So we tried this experiment instead: another way to intensify the sensation of heat. Brave, I’ll give them that.’
Also read:
- Recipe: coffee butter
- Coffee. With fizz. You need this.
- Say yes to the press! Your favorite coffee in 4 minutes
