Ask me about Starbucks

[kutuz_off]

What are the best ways to create alcoholic drinks with SB coffee?

[suzzer99]

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What are the best ways to create alcoholic drinks with SB coffee?

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I call this the "Highlander": get a pound of Starbucks espresso beans and some good scotch. Put scotch in glass. Drink. Attempt to trade beans for more scotch.

Try it with other liquors as well!

[El Diablo]

All,

In researching questions for this, I have found something that has blown my mind.

CB or someone please confirm for me: Chai is just regular tea (with milk and spices/flavorings). Is this correct? For years I have thought "chai tea" was something different than tea, some other sort of tea-like plant. Like, I thought chai::tea as soy milk::milk (ie: tea alternative made from "chai" instead of tea). I am really floored here! I thought there were three different things - coffee, tea, chai. WTF!

CB: Yerba mate. This is a chai-like thing that apparently actually IS different than tea. Has Starbucks ever sold this? Tully's here sells it.

[secretprankster]

Diablo, if Frappuccinos are too sweet then my opinion might just be pointless, but IMO the bottled ones are awful compared to those made in the store. Plus you get whipped cream and syrup and all that jazz.

[kutuz_off]

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CB or someone please confirm for me: Chai is just regular tea (with milk and spices/flavorings). Is this correct? For years I have thought "chai tea" was something different than tea, some other sort of tea-like plant. Like, I thought chai::tea as soy milk::milk (ie: tea alternative made from "chai" instead of tea). I am really floored here! I thought there were three different things - coffee, tea, chai. WTF!

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FWIW, Russian word for tea is "chai".

[Shadowrun]

While this is true, i believe it is tea in other languages as well and the word originates from china.

[traz]

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CB -

Can you give me any secrets or tips or anything?

Like, "whisper this word and the cute barista will tickle your balls with her tongue ring"

or maybe just "Order X and you'll get double the coffee for 1/2 the price vs. Y"

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Try ordering a tall in a grande cup, or a short in a tall cup etc. Alot of the times the barista will forget and just fill the cup right up.

[Blarg]

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Al,

"Also is this just a really convoluted, long-winded way of saying people prioritize their expenses differently?"

If you read through Blarg's response, you'll find that the answer to your question is pretty much yes.

The point I was making was that if you are in debt, struggling to pay your bills, and falling deeper behind each month, then you CAN'T AFFORD to buy $4 coffee drinks at Starbucks.

Blarg's contention is that, if someone prioritizes $4 Starbucks drinks over paying their rent, then in their economic value system, they can "afford" it.

I feel like that is largely a semantic distinction and not a really interesting point at all.

What Blarg and I disagree on 100% is the following:

Blarg: "To be truly economically challenged, you have to be really wanting to be somewhere different from where you are financially. That's where the challenge comes in.

So I think you're incorrect that a surprising amount of economically challenged people are buying coffee at 4 bucks a pop. But you may well be right about how many bums do it."

I know of many people who desperately crave to be in a better financial situation than they are, but are stuck in their rut PRECISELY BECAUSE they make horrible decisions like allocating their limited resources towards $4 Starbucks drinks. So, yes, I do contend that many "economically challenged" people do indeed patronize Starbucks.

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I would contend that that shows that they don't want it. You and I have a very different idea of what discipline is, apparently, and what wanting something really is. I would contend that what you call wanting something, according to what you noted above, constitutes bullsh*t to me.

I've had plenty of friends who say they really really want to do something, but they don't really. They "wish", not want. By which I mean they aren't willing to act out on their claimed wants. And so they don't really want them at all.

As a concrete example, in martial arts, in my experience over the years, the guys who quit first were the white guys. They "wanted" to get good -- so they said. But they were full of sh*t. They didn't really want that. They wanted to think of themselves as good, or hope it would miraculously happen somehow, not do what it took to get good. Once they found out real effort was necessary, and they couldn't cheat the process or be granted magical wishes, they were outta there. They didn't really want it at all. They just liked wishful daydreams.

Compared to the Asians. They stuck around. When they said they wanted to learn a technique or get to a skill level, they really meant it. That's what wanting is, to me -- the rest is just talk. You don't REALLY want it if you just gosh darn really wish you could have it. If you wanted it, you would try like hell. If you don't, that's fine, but don't say you wanted something that was definitely attainable if you didn't put forth the effort to get it. You didn't want it, and you proved it definitively.

I think you misunderstood some of what I was saying, but whatever.

Anyway, we should leave this thread alone with these discussions.

[jws43yale]

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Diablo, if Frappuccinos are too sweet then my opinion might just be pointless, but IMO the bottled ones are awful compared to those made in the store. Plus you get whipped cream and syrup and all that jazz.

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You can get not as sweet frappuchinos in the stores and they are great on a summer day. When I was in London they had an Espresso frappuchino which was strong and not too sweet, but unfortunately all they seem to have in the States is a coffee frappuchino. Even this is almost too sweet for me; I can't imagine drinking one of the syrupy whipped cream ones without gagging.

Oh yeah, and I normally order a doppio macchiato, double espresso, a cappuchino, or straight coffee.

[traz]

Chai literally means tea in alot of the Eurasia area, but when used in common North American speak it usually refers to a specific type of spiced black tea