Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Stores drop fancy coffee names

High street giant Debenhams is dumbing-down its coffee menu after 70% of customers complained it was confusing. It is axing American-style terms such as “venti skinny latte” as people are ashamed to ask their meaning.



Caffe latte is now described as ‘really really milky coffee’, Cappuccino as ‘frothy coffee’ and Caffe mocha as ‘chocolate flavoured coffee’. Black coffee is ‘simple coffee, with or without milk’ with espresso shot labelled as ‘a shot of strong coffee’.

Rather than offering confusing ‘tall’ (meaning small) ‘grande’ (meaning large) or ‘venti’ (meaning extra large) coffee sizes as found in other shops, the high street retailer has also scrapped different size options, instead offering shoppers simply a ‘cup’ or a ‘mug’ of their favourite drink.



Debenhams say: “We’re testing a redesign of the menu so shoppers spend less time playing coffee Cluedo and more time enjoying their favourite drink.” The Plain English Campaign welcomed the move. Founder Chrissie Maher said: “Whether tea or coffee, it needs to be in plain English. If customers can read the menu clearly, they’re more likely to try something new and they may come back.”

7 comments:

Brixter said...

That's nice! I never really drink coffee so on the occassions that I do, I don't know what those terms mean.

WilliamRocket said...

Great idea, but if they do the same to pizza ?

SteveC said...

I don't know. It seems to be dumbing down the menu. Its akin to changing pizza to 'flat, thin savory pie'. If the particular coffee style is foreign I say keep the name of the coffees, add a brief description, but lose the 'grande, venti, tall' business.

Ratz said...

This reminds me of the scene in role models:

Danny: And a large black coffee.
coffee girl: A what?
Danny: Large black coffee?
coffee girl: Do you mean a venti?
Danny: No, I mean large.
coffee girl: Venti is large.
Danny: No, venti is twenty.
Danny: Large is large. In fact, tall is large. And grande is Spanish for large. Venti is the only one that doesn't mean large. It's also the only one that's Italian. Congratulations, you're stupid in three languages.

BoS said...

About time. It's coffee, there was never any need for all of that pretentious clap trap

Anonymous said...

The term venti is used to describe the 20 oz drink.

Barbwire said...

BoS, the pretentious crap was to justify the ridiculous prices.