So, being a regular southern dandy and wannabe highmind, I drink in coffeeshops all the time, darling. But, even so, I still find coffeeshop jargon to be really irksome. I mean, “venti”… what the hell!? However, the following article should be of interest to people who read my blog. Debenhams have renamed their coffees into “plain” English. Not sure if I agree with the artfulness of their decisions, but here’s the article.
(Before the article, however, I thought I would make the following suggestions:
cafe latte = milky-coffee, milk-coffee
cappuccino = frothy-coffee, froth-coffee
mocha = chocolatey-coffee, chocolate-coffee
espresso = strong black coffee
and of course… small, medium/middle, large/big, instead of tall, venti, and grande)
http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/latte-thats-now-really-really-235316170.html
A latte? That’s now a ‘really, really milky coffee’ in Debenhams
By Andrew Trotman | Telegraph – 20 hours ago
Debenhams (Berlin: D2T.BE – news) has vowed to end “coffee confusion” by replacing words such as latte and cappuccino with plain English on its menus.
The British retailer said that more than 70pc of its customers struggle with foreign names of hot drinks, so it decided to get back to basics.
A caffe latte is now called a “really, really milky coffee”, while a cappuccino has become a “frothy coffee”, and a caffe mocha has been changed to a “chocolate flavoured coffee”. Black coffee has been replaced with “simple coffee, with or without milk”, while an espresso is labelled “a shot of strong coffee”.
But Debenhams hasn’t just stopped at its types of coffees. Instead of the tall, grande or venti sizes favoured by big-name shops such as Starbucks (NasdaqGS: SBUX – news) , customers in Debenhams can now simply ask for a cup or mug.
John Baker, director of food services at Debenhams says: “We’re trialling a redesign of our coffee menu in Oxford Street so shoppers spend less time playing coffee Cluedo and more time enjoying their favourite drink.”
The retailer reportedly sells more than 100,000 coffees each week in its 160 cafes and restaurants across the UK and Ireland (Xetra: A0Q8L3 – news) – double the amount of tea.
Do you struggle with coffee names?
Wrixlings 
I don’t think this is a bad idea in Debenhams, but the idea that people can’t deal with names for coffees in coffee shops is just patronising. To take a good comparison: we don’t walk into a bar and expect a ‘Cosmopolitan’ to be called ‘limey, cranberry vodka’. It’s just what these drinks are called. What I can understand to be confusing is the different terms for size between major coffee shops, I frequently hear people go into Costa and order a ‘Tall’ or something similar. But calling a ‘latte’ a ‘milky coffee’ is just oversimplification. Besides, it’s no less confusing. To me: a ‘milky coffee’ is filter with milk in it.
But would that not be a “milk” coffee, as opposed to a “milkY” one?
Incidentally, I should point out that a true latte is partly defined by having three layers…. which I almost never see anywhere, ever. In any case, the Italian “caffe latte” just means “milk coffee”, anyway.
I had been advised that to make the perfect cappuccino you need to use extremely cold milk – however I
cannot tell the difference in the ones I have produced at home.
Although I’m a little bit of a rookie the cappuccinos I create at home are much better than Costa Coffee (In My Estimation Anyway !)