British retailer tries to clear up 'coffee confusion'
Michael Chen
Senior Web Developer
After a survey found that many java drinkers are baffled by terms such as latte, mocha, venti and grande, Debenhams adopts 'plain English' for its cafe menus.
What we've got here is "coffee confusion."
That's what a British survey found in determining that 70% of java drinkers couldn't figure out a latte from a mocha or a venti from a grande. So the Debenhams department store chain, based in London, replaced all the names with what it called "plain English."
Its new menu, announced this week, lets customers order a "frothy coffee" instead of a cappuccino. A caffe mocha is now a "chocolate flavored coffee" and a caffe latte is a "really, really milky coffee."
Even a black coffee was renamed "simple coffee — with or without milk." An espresso shot is deemed "a shot of strong coffee."
And, in a barely veiled jab at Starbucks and its somewhat arbitrary sizing terms tall, grande and venti — for small, medium and large — Debenhams offers a simpler choice: cup or mug.
In a particularly perky announcement, the department store declared that "no longer will coffee-lovers be in a muddle over mocha, caught out by cappuccino or embarrassed about espresso."
The company said it sells 100,000 coffee drinks a week at its 160 cafes and restaurants in Britain — a small drop in the mug considering that 79% of Brits are coffee drinkers and collectively consume about 70 million cups a day.
No word on what Debenhams would do if customers want their drinks with low-fat or calorie-light milk — or skinny in the current coffeehouse jargon.
Source: latimes.com/business/la-fi-coffee-confusion-20121102,0,6436377.story
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