Coffee Talk
I have a couple of questions about coffee — about the word “coffee,” the ways we use it, not about the beverage itself.
The first one: “coffee black.” I don’t order my coffee in the same style every time; usually I want it with milk and two sugars, but sometimes, I just want the bean juice — no cream, no Splenda, nada nunca. It seems logically as though that is coffee black.
It isn’t, at least in NYC-area delis and restaurants; around here, “coffee black” only means no dairy products, and if I don’t specify “a coffee black, nothing else in it,” the server will add sugar. Even when I’ve specified, the server usually asks, “Sugar?” “Black. Nothing else in it.”
I meant to test the theory that it’s a Gotham regionalism on my road trip, but I’ve conditioned myself so thoroughly to ask for black coffee in that fashion that I never got to test the theory (and I could have just asked people, but I never remembered, because I…needed coffee).
My basis for believing that New York City has its own coffee-ordering m.o. is not the firmest: my mother explained to me once that, “in the city,” “coffee regular” meant cream and sugar. I don’t remember the context of the conversation; I do know that neither of my parents took their coffee that way (half-and-half only — or, as my father rendered it on the shopping list to save time, “1”).
So, English-speakers and -watchers around the globe: discuss. What does “coffee black” mean to you? What does it mean to your local servers? To your parents? What about “coffee regular” — does it mean the same thing in Wichita and Walla Walla? Do we even observe these nuances anymore in the age of Starbucks, the cup of coffee as lifestyle signifier?
The next question addresses what I’ve observed as a regionalism shift. I didn’t do a ton of coffee-getting as a teenager, but as of when I left for college, when I wanted to invite a friend or cute boy to enjoy a caffeinated beverage outside of the home, I said, “Let’s have coffee.” (Or, sometimes, “Let’s ‘do’ coffee,” carefully rendering the verbal air quotes — I think we still thought of that as ironic phrasing then.)
As I got closer with Ernie, a European, I adopted her more British usage of certain terms — “glovebox” (versus “glove compartment”); “have a coffee” or “get a coffee” (versus “have/get coffee,” no article).
My parents would tease me a little for adopting these lexical Ernie-isms, but I’ve noticed over the last few years that that one — “have/get A coffee” — is becoming standard. And if I had to point to a reason, I’d say that it’s the lifestyle-signifier shift I mentioned above; for most of us, twenty years ago, coffee was coffee was coffee, and while you could order it different ways — black, regular, light one sugar — it was still coffee. Nobody had an opinion on the merits of drip vs. percolated that I can remember, although a perk coffeemaker looked impossibly complicated to operate when I was a kid, the domain of grandmas and church kitchens too strapped to upgrade.
Now, nobody doesn’t know what a cappuccino is, what an espresso is, what a French press is. You might not care, but you know these terms, and their contemporary presence everywhere seems to have elevated coffee lexically from a useful beverage to an experience, a mini-event. When you have dinner, that could mean anything from a Michelin-starred steak to microwaved mac-and-cheese; when you have A dinner, that’s something different, with invitations and linen.
Do you still have coffee? Or do you have A coffee? If you have A coffee, is this something you grew up saying, or hearing your parents say? Or did you start saying it in the last five or ten years, without realizing it or knowing why?
Tags: good coffee our friend English r(o)ad trips
Off-topic: the script font in the ad illustrating this post is weird. I’d just love a hot cup of Gwashmglon’s, wouldn’t you? It’s so digestible.
Grew up in Texas, college in Baltimore, a decade in Boston, and now in CT. I get “some” coffee, thank you, and black means as it comes, no adornment.
As for why the baristas at your local Starbucks or other coffee bar might look at you funny for ordering “black coffee”, it’s because they have multiple types of coffee to offer and no matter which one you pick, they aren’t going to dress it for you unless you order something fancy. I’d go with “large dark roast” or something equally as expressive if I were you.
And here I was, wondering if my father was the only person to use “high-test” to mean caffeinated coffee. Guess not.
In my Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi experience, black coffee is unadorned coffee, and a regular coffee meant decaf.
Living in NY, I’ve noticed a split: “black coffee” gets me just coffee in a coffee shop. But in a bakery or deli it gets me coffee with sugar. The coffee shop thing seems pretty consistent across the city, but I can really only speak for the bakery/delis near me.
My theory would be that the split is mostly between workers/owners who are native New Yorkers (and so grew up with black coffee meaning sugared coffee) and those who are come-heres. I don’t know much about the history of coffee in New York, but near-eastern coffee tends to be made with sugar in it, so maybe that’s how it started, and everyone else just jumped on board?
I’m an Oregonian, and here, “black coffee” means nothing in it. I also can’t think of anywhere I get coffee where the person serving adds the milk or sugar — it’s usually on the end of the counter or on the table. The most they do is ask if you want room for cream.
I would usually ask if someone wants to “have” coffee.
As a Starbucks barista, I can tell you that the reason for all those irritating questions (“Do you want cream or sugar? You sure you don’t want that iced?”) is because of fucking stupid drive-thru people. Yeah, it might not be fun to have to specify exactly what you want, but for every customer with a brain in his or her head who knows, you know, how to use his words and ask for what he wants, there is some moronic bastard who will order a cup of coffee and then when you give it to him at the window will look at you all puzzled and be like, “I wanted cream/sugar/ice/hazelnut/whatever.” Because I’m just supposed to know that, you see, like, telepathically or something. Seriously, it happens SO OFTEN. There are also people who will omit part of their order on purpose to get out of paying the extra 40 cents for syrup. So it’s really easier on everyone for us to ask, if you don’t specify. Also, you’d be surprised how many people don’t know the difference between a Frappuccino and a cappuccino.
If you come inside, though, we’ll just ask you if you need room to add your own stuff. I’m in Mississippi, but these things are standardized nationwide for all Starbucks corporate stores.
When people ask for “regular” coffee I assume they mean regular as opposed to decaf. When they ask for it black I assume they mean nothing in it (but I ask anyway, because of aforementioned morons, and you wouldn’t believe how often I get the affronted response, “No, I need sugar!”)
@courtney “As for why the baristas at your local Starbucks or other coffee bar might look at you funny for ordering “black coffee”, it’s because they have multiple types of coffee to offer and no matter which one you pick, they aren’t going to dress it for you unless you order something fancy. I’d go with “large dark roast” or something equally as expressive if I were you.”
Yeah, I mean we try not to be rude and actually look at you funny, but a Starbucks is typically going to have two different roasts brewing at any given time, a medium roast and a bold (dark), and if you don’t specify which we’re going to have to ask. Unless we’ve run out of one or the other or stopped caring, and then you get whatever’s closest at the time.
This post has made me realize how many grievances I have about this job. It’s taught me a lot about how to be a better customer. Like, please stop making the “I don’t understand Starbucks sizes” joke, because it is not 1993. Please don’t ask for cream on the side in the drive-thru, because Starbucks has cartons of cream, not little individual ones, and it is a pain in the ass to have to pour you your own little cup of it. Please don’t assume I know what you mean when you say “light/sweet” or “sandy” or whatever, and please don’t get pissy when I ask you for a clarification: I am trying to give you what you want. Please don’t ask for coffee with no room and then pour some out into the garbage; I am not trying to cheat you, I am trying to give you what you want. Please don’t call it a “Frapp” or a “Frappe”, because that’s not what it is and my boss will yell at me if I don’t correct you. Please don’t bitch at me because Seattle Drip has Irish Cream flavor and we don’t. Please just don’t be a bastard to baristas, or fast food employees in general, is I guess what I’m saying. Not that any of you are. But some of the people I have to deal with at work…. man.
In support of my theory that “New York black coffee” started with near-eastern immigrants, Wikipedia’s entry on Turkish coffee tells me that sugared coffee is “black coffee” in Israel as well. The sugared-unsugared divide seems to map pretty closely to the borders of the Ottoman empire, but what that means about how New York coffee is served, I do not know. Anyone?
a Starbucks is typically going to have two different roasts brewing at any given time, a medium roast and a bold (dark), and if you don’t specify which we’re going to have to ask
I’ve been asked this by a Starbucks barista maybe three times in what must be hundreds of visits. I don’t care what roast I get (“whatever’s closer” is my response, when asked), so this isn’t a complaint, but I never specify and Starbucks staff almost never follow up.
I get around the pouring-out thing by asking for a grande in a venti cup…but if it makes you feel any better, customers are equally annoyed by the “why can’tcha just call it a large” commentary in line. The sizes are posted, with visual aids; unless you’re Amish, you have no excuse, either for being confused or for thinking the crack is funny. They call it a venti, get over it already.
Detroit: Black means nothing in it, have to specify cream or sugar if you want it. I have never visited the place here that will put it in for you. That would freak me out but good.
It seems like I need to get coffee/grab a coffee are pretty interchangeable in my circles. Or we go out for coffee, if it’s the exploratory date kind of coffee. Friends would meet for coffee. I’m now over-thinking this.
Yeah, we’re supposed to stop brewing the bold roast after noon (cost-saving measure, I guess?) but our store never does because so many of our regulars keep asking for bold. That might be why. And don’t ask me why we don’t ever brew decaf except on request anymore, because I truly have stopped trying to apply logic to the way we operate and now I just close my eyes and think of health insurance.
From Walla Walla (WA):
We “Go grab coffee” or “Go get coffee.” I’ve never heard “coffee black” before; it seems like lately I have to order “drip coffee, please…black. No, no sugar. No, no cream.”
On a side note, can anyone explain the protocols of ordering coffee in New Zealand to me? I spent six months (!!) there and never did figure it out. What the he*l is a ‘short black’ versus a ‘flat white’?
I’m Canadian (waves to Hellcat13) with limited experience of Tim Horton’s – so perhaps my take on things is atypical. (Or possibly uninstructive.) Even so, I find it hard to imagine that “Coffee, black” could imply the presence of sugar. I never would have guessed that the locution “A coffee” or “A tea” was common usage in the UK. Adding the article seems stilted to me.
A “regular” may mean 1 cream, 1 sugar at Tim’s, but I read somewhere that the Double Double is the most popular order there by a significant (read: scary-huge) margin. (That may be confined to Canada. Er, yay?)
Note to the TN Traveller: My Italian language teacher told us that there are two coffee orders that mark one instantly as a tourist: asking for “un espresso” (Italians will only say “un caffè“, or specify Americano, latte or cappuccino); or ordering any coffee-with-dairy combo after about 11 in the morning. Cappuccino and latte and so on are morning drinks exclusively.
Of course, if you want a café au lait in France, you have to order café crème; I learned the hard way if you want a cappuccino in France or some parts of Switzerland, you order un renversé (still have no clue what exactly is being turned upside down in that order).
“Coffee drink” is probably to coffee as “cheese food” is to cheese. It sounds redundant until you look at what’s being offered.
I miss the first incarnation of Mike Myers’s “Coffee Talk”, when it was hosted by Pawl Bawldwin. “Cawll. We’ll tawk. No big whoop.”
New Hampshire here. My husband is from MD and he always says “black no sugar”. I never understood why until now. I always thought it would confuse servers more – why enter something you don’t want into the equation?
Dunkins is a different story. Regular is cream, sugar, and a little bit of coffee, and you always need to specify no sugar, no matter what. I never order coffee there or anywhere I can’t doctor it myself. I hate a too milky Joe.
Where I grew up (Philadelphia area), “black” meant “nothing.” That’s how my mom drinks it.
But yes, in New York, I experienced “coffee regular,” meaning cream and sugar.
My sense is that in New York, this may originate with the fact that they often have no room for a stand where they can put sugar, milk, a trashcan, and so forth, and where they can afford to have people mill around doctoring up coffee the way they congregate around the stations at Starbucks, so they just do it behind the counter. Could be wrong, but that was always my guess. I can think of many places where coffee was typically ordered where this would be the case.
If you accept that they do it this way, and that cream/sugar is the most common order, it makes sense that for efficiency’s sake, they’d call that “regular.” And under that definition, “black” just means no cream, if you’re working down from “regular,” since the sugar doesn’t make it any less black. But I would think that there would come to be a less awkward construction for “nothing in it” or what I think I heard more often when I was there, which was “black, no sugar.” So I get why “black” doesn’t mean “nothing,” but I don’t get why there isn’t an easy, commonly accepted term that does.
I will say I liked it when Starbucks started offering iced coffee with milk as a drink, and started offering to sweeten it with syrup, because sugar doesn’t dissolve so great in cold coffee, and that way, I get it exactly how I want it exactly when they hand it to me, without sugar sludge at the bottom. (The guy at my cafe in Brooklyn used to toss the cup over a couple of times in his hand, flipping it end to end, to help mix it up; I can’t do that at Starbucks.)
I’ve been drinking coffee nearly every day for the last 25 years, mostly at home, though I do drink a fair bit of it when I’m out at dinner or parties or with friends. I’ve lived in Northern California most of my life, save for a 2 year stint in Houston.
If I’ve said “coffee” or “coffee, black” at a restaurant or coffee shop in CA, northern, southern or central, I’ve always gotten it black, nothing added, no other questions asked. Houston, or traveling around the country, it was a little more random — I’d get places in the south that would want to add sugar, maybe similar to a sweet tea vs. plain iced tea sort of way? Assuming that everyone drinks coffee with sugar so why even ask anymore? I’m not sure. I usually drink my coffee with milk or cream, but most of the places I go will bring cream on request and I add it myself.
The only place I’ve noticed where that’s changed lately is if I’m going through the McDonald’s drive-through and I get a cup of coffee, they’ll ask if I want cream or sugar added and how much — presumably because they don’t want people to try fumbling with cream cups and sugar packets while driving.
As for coffee vs. *a* coffee — I don’t use an article (let’s go get/meet for coffee) but I have friends I’ve grown up with who do. I’ve always thought it interesting, to throw an ‘a’ in there, but just chalked it up to hearing different things growing up.
I’m from New Zealand and we have the same coffee terminology as Australia. Black coffee is a short black or a long black (depending on how much water you want added to the coffee shot), a flat white the standard white coffee (it’s like a smaller, more concentrated latte).
Sugar is generally not added to anyone’s coffee without the barista asking whether you want it first. We fancy ourselves a nation of coffee snobs and that would likely cause shrieks of horror about “the purity of the bean” or somesuch.
Just commenting on the Tim Horton’s sweetened lattes. Tim’s hasn’t been serving them that long and in fact, they’re not so much lattes as very, very sweet hot powered beverages. Many people (well me) believe that they should have left well enough alone and stuck to plain old coffee. Tim’s really, really likes sugar.
Here in San Diego, CA., if I want coffee with nothing in it, I say “coffee, black” or just plain old “coffee”. I cannot get over the East Coast/Canadian tradition of people putting creamer/sugar in for you; that’s something you do yourself. I say either “let’s get coffee” or “let’s get a coffee” but this is largely due to my Anglophile parents and my exposure to the BBC as a child.
When I lived in Japan (just to add further international flavor to the discussion!), I had to order “blend coffee” which just meant that I wanted coffee that had been made with a real ground beans and a filter, not from instant.
Born in Southern Ontario in the 80s and grew up there. Black means nothing in it, regular means one cream one sugar. Black also means the same thing for my parents (one grew up here, one born in a non-English-speaking country and came here as a child) and for my grandparents who grew up speaking English.
For me, “go for coffee” means you go to the coffee shop and sit down and chat. The sit down and chat is the goal, the coffee shop is the venue. “Get a coffee” or “grab a coffee” means the coffee is the goal and it’s probably take-out (with “grab” it’s definitely take-out), although this construction can also be used if you need to kill time and are doing so by drinking coffee. “Get coffee” is somehow…more. Either you need caffeine more urgently than “get a coffee”, or you’re getting coffee for multiple people.
I’ve lived near Seattle my entire life, black coffee means nothing in it and regular coffee means non-decaf. “Are you drinking regular or decaf?” If you want sugar in your black coffee then you should ask for coffee “with sugar, no cream.” There’s no regional word for it that I’m aware of.
Well, since the Michigan wording has been clarified, hehe, I’m from MI originally and yeah, black = nothing in the coffee, ask for cream and sugar if you want it but beware, it was milk when I was a kid. Now you might get cream, or you might get milk. Sanka was decaf, and it was assumed you drank instant unless you specified brewed (at home).
I now live in Central Massachusetts and had to learn regular = cream and sugar, black = no dairy, and to specify hot or cold when going through a Dunkin’s drive-through.
@Otter, you should see the looks my girls get when they break out the MI speak here in New England! They both use ‘soda’ and ‘pop’ correctly depending on their location; as well a few other oddities.
Philadelphia and surrounding-area resident. I always thought “black coffee” meant just coffee and nothing else and “regular coffee” was coffee that wasn’t decaffeinated. And the Dunkin’ Donuts around here all put the cream and sugar in for you, as far as I’ve seen.
Black coffee = nothing in it. Regular coffee = not decaf. And, yeah, the “a” coffee thing is very British to me. I’m in GA, currently near Atlanta but originally from the southwestern part of the state.
As a non-coffee drinker, I have a hard time when serving coffee (like when I was a receptionist) and someone asked for cream and 2 sugars. What constitutes “a” sugar, or the right amount of cream? I always drafted a coffee drinker to help me on the sly.
I’ve recently discovered it’s kind of southern to give coffee to pets. My grandparents gave their dog coffee every morning, and my mom swears that dog was dead for 2 years before the caffeine wore off. She took it with cream, no sugar. And apparently a great-aunt raised parakeets that she gave coffee to, and they’d ask for it.
Years ago, I was in a meeting in Sydney with a New Yorker who had come straight from the airport after a 30 hour trip. She asked the waiter for coffee, he proceeded to rattle off the standard list of Sydney coffee options. I quickly ordered her a flat white before she burst into tears.
Non-coffee drinker from NJ, with a job that keeps her traveling across the country for months at a time.
Black for me always meant nothing in it, but then again, we went to diners mostly so a regular coffee was also a caffeine distinction. Now though, with the Starbucks, the word ‘coffee’ rarely enters into the equation, especially when surrounded by running-on-empty theatre people.
Meanwhile, it’s “I’m gonna go grab some coffee” and it always has been: You want some coffee after dinner? It’s not that late, let’s grab some coffee. Dad’s making some coffee, ask again in twenty minutes.
Another Canadian here (hello, double-double!). In my experience, ‘black coffee’ means no milk, no sugar. If you want sugar, you would say ‘black,(number)sugar’.
When talking about coffee, I use ‘get coffee’ or ‘have coffee’ when I’m referring to the social experience (as in, “Let’s have coffee tomorrow.”). But if I’m just buying/drinking a coffee solo, I am ‘getting A coffee’ or ‘having A coffee’. I think the tea analogy that Jane used is pretty good.
Living in South Korea, you don’t hear a lot of articles anyway. So the question is, am I just used to hearing it either way, or do I silently fill the articles in when I translate? :)
Coffee light and sweet might be the thing I miss the most about my home, the NY suburbs. No one knows what the heck you’re talking about here in OH. I’m so happy others here know of it.
@Molly: I am so sorry, and I could never do that job, not in a million years, because I think they usually fire and/or arrest you when you leap over the counter and throttle people, and for having the self-control it takes NOT to do that, I salute you. Why, BTW, does anybody get shirty with someone handling their food and/or beverages? Hasn’t it occurred to them that while spitting in your order (or worse) would be frowned upon by management, it could technically still be done?
Another Australian here. I’ve never heard anyone order either a coffee black or regular, probably coz we don’t really do drip coffee so everyone has different orders. If I wanted a black I’d order a long black or a short black (which is the same as an espresso, at least in Sydney). In places that add the sugar for you, you’d always have to specify the number as there’s not really a standard.
When travelling, I only ever order an espresso as I find it too variable otherwise. In some places an Americano is what I would call a long black, in others it comes with milk.
So, something I’ve always wondered – when you talk about adding cream, is it really cream or is it milk? It’s very rare to have actual cream in your coffee here unless you order a vienna coffee.
It gets interesting here in Utah, that’s for sure.
People sometimes use the article when ordering coffee (“I’ll have a coffee, please”) but generally not when inviting (“Let’s get coffee” or, often, just “Coffee?”). Black means no cream, no sugar, but most of the time, that part is up to you. Coffee shops leave out creamer and sugar for self-service; conscientious baristas will ask if you “need room” for cream.
Diners…bah. Sugar is usually at the table. If your server knows what he’s doing, he’ll ask if you take cream. If he doesn’t understand coffee (a common thing in Mormon Utah), he might need to be reminded, or he might bring it as default. Worst are the servers who bring creamer to the table and then pour the cup to the brim so there IS no room.
I’ve always known “regular coffee” to be non-decaf. As in “De-caf or regular?”
I think the next exotic coffee shop option just BEGGING to be founded in North America is Aussie Coffee. Enough with the hipster venti and grandes, let’s have baristas asking if you want a flat white, and blown-up grainy photos of Sydney Opera House and kangas in the wild on the walls.
I just realised that I am familiar enough with the Timmie’s drive-through procedure that I now give my order, with special requests, in the same order they punch it into the till.
@Lynne: those sweetened “lattes” are nothing more than differently-artificially-flavoured machine hot chocolates. Sticky!
I was in Ottawa recently, and went to the local chain, Bridgehead, where I had THE BEST iced coffee ever, served to me black (unsweetened) with an offer of a pitcher of handmade brown sugar syrup from the fridge. Glorious.
New Yorker for four years, Chicagoan for ten, raised in small town Pennsylvania. In Chicago, “coffee black” is coffee with nothing in it, but you may get weird looks for not saying “black coffee.” “Coffee regular” would get you even more weird looks — what the hell is “regular” in these days of double-latte half-caf soy with an extra shot? Now for the movie geekery: “Coffee black” is requested by the receptionist at some office in Miami when Carl Bernstein goes down there to get phone records in All the Presiden’t Men — that should indicate how many times I’m seen it — and “coffee regular” is defined by John Travolta in Look Who’s Talking as cream with two sugars, and I DESPISE myself for knowing that.
North Georgia reporting in! I’ve served my time as a café manager in one of the large chain bookstores, and I’ve actually not heard the terms “coffee black” OR “coffee regular” until I read this post. Around here, it’s “black coffee” or “plain coffee”, and regular is the opposite of decaf.
From what I’ve overheard, most people around here say “get coffee” rather than “get a coffee”. I’m likely to say “meet for coffee” or “grab coffee”, with the former indicating a visit of some duration.
I have nothing to add to this conversation that hasn’t already been said, but I’ve really enjoyed reading it and it inspired me to go over and get (not A) coffee at Einstein Bros. – where I was just given an empty cup and directed to the coffee dispensers, thereby eliminating the whole problem. :)
Cawfee… as a utilitarian beverage I would say, ‘I need coffe.’
If asking if someone wanted to with me to have a cuppa Joe, I’d probably ask, “Wanna go get some coffee?”
To me, “a coffee” means that there is talking that needs to be done and/or not a lot of time to spend on it.
I’ve also heard that “coffee, regular” is a downstate NY code for cream & sugar. Up here on the frontier (Albany area), Dunkin’ Donuts calls it a coffee, light & sweet. In most area diners, it would be “coffee with extra cream” since sugar is on the table.
I’ve lived lots of places (here, in Western NY, in NC, in IL, and abroad), and my family is blended upstate and downstate NY. So who knows what I can claim as regionalism and what is just idiolect?
As a native and lifelong Chicagoan, it’s always been “black coffee,” meaning nothing in it. And when getting coffee or offering coffee, I usually hear, and say myself, “let’s get some coffee,” or, “would you like some coffee?” Otherwise it’s always, “get coffee,” or “have coffee,” never “a coffee.” Thanks, Sars, I enjoy the differences in regional dialects and phrases, but never noticed them as they apply to coffee. Now, I will!
I know the exact moment I started saying “a coffee,” and it was after I studied abroad in Buenos Aires. After saying “un café” or more likely “un cafecito” (I still love their tiny little coffee mugs) for five months, “I need coffee” just didn’t sound right anymore. But even there, nobody ever tried to sugar my coffee for me. On the topic of tea (un tesito?), here in California if you order iced tea it comes unsweetened, but I’ve heard that elsewhere ordering iced tea gets you sweetened tea. Is that true? Also, ew. I’ll often put sugar in my coffee, but never in tea.
And now if you’ll excuse me, I really need to get a coffee.
I’m from North Carolina, although i live in DC now, and in both places I/we have always just “gone for coffee.” When I do anything else, it’s to “grab a cup of coffee,” which usually happens in my own kitchen. I tend to frequent the Starbucks around the corner at work, so my experience is probably fairly standardized in that respect, but even at indie coffee shops both here and at home, when you ask for black coffee, you get plain coffee with no cream, no sugar. “Regular” coffee = caffeinated. I guess maybe it’s a function of just not having many places that do the seasoning for you?
I asked my Maine-born husband about the whole coffee thing last night, and he says black coffee means nothing else in it, and regular means caffinated. I asked if that meant nobody added anything like sugar beforehand.
“That’s a good way to get KILLED,” he snarled. And gave me scary eyes while he said it.
So yeah, don’t mess with the Mainer’s bean juice, ya’ll.
Like Otter, I too am not a coffee drinker. I drink caffeine free Coke, lots of it. But it’s my understanding that black means nothing in it. But I’ve heard people say “Black 2 sugars” which basically means no milk. I think it’s different everywhere, but when in doubt, specify.
NYC is the only place I’ve been to where “regular coffee” means coffee w/cream and sugar. I will never forget my horror on discovering that at the age of fifteen in 1970. I was asked if I wanted my coffee regular, and I said yes. Blech!
I always say “coffee black” at a diner or casual dining restaurant, because I have found that when I do that, the server is less likely to go to the extra bother of bringing cream we aren’t going to use. It gets a better success rate than asking for “black coffee” or “coffee, no cream.” However, I was in New Orleans this winter, and ordered “coffee, black” at a Wendy’s, and I clearly threw the server off, because we had to repeat that about three times, and finally explain that we didn’t want any cream or sugar. I’m thinking that’s not a common phrase in that city.
Here in Minnesota, I will say, “Shall we get some coffee?” or, “Let’s get a cup of coffee,” but I rarely hear, “Let’s get a coffee.”
Very interesting question, the get coffee/get A coffee thing. Thinking about it, I realize that I (and my husband, and I think pretty much most of my acquaintances) would say “Let’s get coffee” meaning “let’s go sit down somewhere and chat over a beverage” and “Let’s go get A coffee” would mean literally “let’s stop at the store and purchase a cup of coffee to then be consumed while we continue on doing other things.” Kind of the opposite of your dinner example. But I had never really thought about it before. (As far as regionalism, I’m currently living in Arizona, but before that was NYC, and before that upstate NY, before that the south. So…?)
“Black” I would assume meant nothing at all in it too, but would definitely specify just to make sure, as I’ve noticed that there doesn’t really seem to be a standard. I like mine with 2% milk and no sugar, though, which ALWAYS has to be specified, as there’s no name for that. I hardly ever get coffee out anymore anyway, though, since I’m trying to stick to just my morning cup, which is generally made at home exactly the way I like it :)
Don’t get me started on places that make “iced coffee” by dumping hot coffee over ice. We have learned to ALWAYS, ALWAYS ask about that before ordering at unknown locations.
I definitely say “get A coffee”, in part (I’m guessing) because a lot of my friends don’t actually drink coffee, so it shortcutted from “get a coffee-type drink”. And I’d say that around here (Toronto), “black” means nothing in.
In Oklahoma “black coffee” is coffee with no additives. “Regular” is used in opposition to “decaf.”
I’m actually an iced tea drinker, myself, but I haven’t been able to start a movement that plain, unadorned tea should be called “brown.” Heh. I just don’t like “sweet” vs. “unsweet.”
Where I’ve lived (Ohio, Arizona, and California) “coffee” means black coffee. The only anachronism I can think of (and this is probably more a family thing) is whether the coffee was “regular” or “unleaded”, unleaded being decaf. (Now that all gasoline sold is unleaded, it makes even less sense.)
Not a US issue, but when my mom was hospitalized in Sicily a couple of years ago, it took the better part of two weeks for her to convince the staff that she wanted black coffee and a separate glass of milk – the default in Sicily was to bring a latte as part of the patient’s breakfast. I think the inability to get a cup of coffee (without milk) was one of the factors which motivated her to get out of the hospital.
@Anna, far upthread – “…don’t agitate so much as irritate.” I hope you won’t mind if I quote this without attribution and pretend that I thought it up myself and feel very clever, and then break down and admit that someone wittier than me said it first.
Nothing to add to the coffee discussion except to agree that that’s how Oregonians order their coffee, and to wonder what it is about the human brain that makes a word look fake after too many iterations.
Just wanted to join in the tangent on gloveboxes- does anyone else call them “jockey boxes” or “the jockeybox?” Picked it up as a kid in Great Falls, Montana. Didn’t realize it was weird until we moved to Oregon before high school and people had no idea what I’d just said. Would love to know the etymology of it if it exists!