In Hollywood films this seems typical. A person has their favorite coffee order like “regular, 2 cream, no sugar”. This cliche is used to show that someone is a regular at the coffee shop. Or that your friend cares for you, and orders your favorite coffee.
I drink coffee every day. Not only I don’t have a favorite coffee order. I don’t think I know any person who has one. So we are wondering whether this thing about favorite coffee type is true.
43 comments
I don’t drink coffee.
Hazelnut latte
Black hot
That’s a super weird trope because you could order that at any coffee place.
Coffee has gotten weird these days, but it used to be that there were only a few things you could ever customize about your coffee, but none of it implies you’re a regular, because if you like your coffee black at one place, why wouldn’t you like it black everywhere?
As a side note, when I lived in New Jersey there were pat coffee orders that just don’t seem to be much of a thing anywhere else I’ve lived. You walk into any New Jersey deli and you can say one of: black, regular, cream no sugar, light and sweet, just cream. You walk into a place in Oregon and ask for a regular, they’ll give you a random coffee and be like “well, that’s a pretty regular coffee to me.”
“regular” doesn’t mean my normal order. It means ordering drip coffee
I don’t usually buy coffee from a shop, but I pretty much make it the same every day. 75% coffee, 25% milk, one scant spoonful of sugar. I had one job where my team would pretty consistently all get coffee in the break room together, and I definitely knew how they had their coffee just from watching them prepare it every day. And again, they were consistent about it.
I think it’s pretty normal that if you have coffee, you have it with the same amount of milk/cream and sugar every day.
You drink coffee every day and it’s something different every time?
You don’t have a “default” choice?
I drink coffee every day, and 90% of the time it’s drip/pour over/French press with a little milk.
Only if I’m feeling fancy will I make a cappuccino or latte.
Black as midnight on a moonless night.
Since inflation started with coffee prices and my belly size I’ve switched to black coffee only for the past two years. 12 oz.
Iced black
Coffee in a cup, served hot.
Coffee, black.
Or if I want a latte I order a straight up latte (with coconut or soy milk).
Right now if I order from Starbucks its the toasted vanilla oatmilk (hot).
It’s really good. And it seems to be the only way I can get a blonde roast from Starbucks. I feel if I just ask for a blonde roast or blonde espresso they don’t seem to know what I’m ordering. But if the drink comes with it then they move into sction..
Anyways that drink is phenomenal
I don’t get coffee from a coffee shop often enough to have a regular order. I do drink my coffee the same way at home most of the time.
“Regular” in the NY area means drip with cream & sugar.
If you’re a regular at a coffee spot, you just show up and they make whatever it is you always get. (“the usual” is how that’s generally worded)
For me personally, black if it’s hot.. splash of milk and simple syrup if it’s iced.
Or a cappuccino/cortadito/etc as is
——
That aside, I don’t really get how someone drinks coffee every day and doesn’t have a preference? Every person I know has the way they typically order coffee..
what do you do, look at the menu each time and pick something different every day? Sugar some days and milk on others? Or what?
Large black coffee.
I always drink an iced americano with a bit of cream
My regular coffee order is no coffee
Double espresso, no sugar.
Yes, a smoothie. Coffee is gross.
At home I take my coffee with honey and fat-free half-and-half. Usually just some kind of medium roast, but occasionally a French vanilla.
At Starbucks I have a blonde vanilla latte, cold in the summer, hot in the winter.
Regular could also imply a size, as in Regular or large. But I can’t really know without context.
If I’m ordering at a shop its usually an americano with no cream or sugar, often times iced if its in the summer because it gets so hot here.
At home its usually black drip, or a k-cup if I’m feeling lazy.
Regular with cream or just regular. That’s it.
Yup- I’m fairly picky, plus I’m lactose imtolerant.
That being said, it differs in different places. One place has floral syrups and unusual milk substitutes so I get a lavender latter with pistachio milk. Another has great matcha and gets pastries from a Dominican bakery, so there it’s an almond milk matcha latte and guava pastelito. A third, a great tea menu and fantastic quiche, so it’s lavender earl grey with almond milk and a veggie quiche.
I know what I like.
Dunks: large hot two and two.
Actual coffee: single origin black
If I am feeling fancy: macchiato
At home: Aeropress with single origin beans from a local roaster diluted with hot water (it’s basically an americano).
That’s a “regular coffee” as opposed to “my regular order of coffee”.
Confusingly in some parts of the country “regular coffee” is black drip coffee, nothing in it. In other parts it means drip coffee with cream and sugar.
Depends on the weather but either an iced or hot coffee with oat milk or…an iced or hot oat milk latte (I’m lactose intolly, cut me some slack here)
Depends on the place, I have three local coffee shops I go to. At coffee culture my usual is whatever monthly flavor they have iced. (This month it’s daffodil. Sounds weird but is quite lovely) At Wyatt’s, it’s usually their seasonal latte (in the fall their pumpkin latte is incredible). At Maude’s, I usually just get a large iced coffee with cream and sugar. Tbh Maude’s coffee is just so-so but I like to play board games there.
When visiting a new coffee shop I always get a black americano to see how good their coffee is. That’s my litmus test
>”regular, 2 cream, no sugar”. This cliche is used to show that someone is a regular at the coffee shop.
No, they just mean like regular drip coffee as opposed to espresso or a latte or something “fancier.” It doesn’t mean that’s their usual order.
I don’t drink my coffee the same way every time. Sometimes I drink it black, especially with something like a cold brew where the flavor of the coffee is a little more nuanced and less bitter, but I’ll still take hot coffee black sometimes, especially in the winter for some reason. Most common way for me to order out and make at home is with half and half and some sugar, but sometimes I don’t use the sugar. Milk is fine if I don’t have half and half. Sometimes I’ll use a flavored creamer or maple syrup as a sweetener.
Black. Always black.
Usually when a customer is a regular at a shop and have a go to order they will get “the usual”
Regular is this sense could mean a few different things but most likely my first example.
Regular as a style: drip coffee(regular), cappuccino, espresso
Regular as a flavor: plain(regular), hazelnut, vanilla, pumpkin spice
Regular as a roast: mild roast, medium roast (regular), dark roast
Regular as a size: small, medium(regular), large
Regular as a temp: hot(regular), iced
If you ordered a regular coffee from me without any other information I’d give you : a hot coffee, sized medium, medium roast with no flavoring and I’d ask if you wanted room to add your own crème and sugar.
I don’t drink coffee but it’s pretty common to have a regular order when you go places enough that they start to know you. I have a standing weekly appointment with my barber Monday mornings that always begins with “Usual?” followed by “Unless you can make me better looking”.
My wife does drink coffee though, stops at the same shop every morning, and they always have her coffee ready for her and on the counter by the time she gets inside.
It’s also pretty common to have a regular drink at a bar. My friends and I went to the same NYC bar practically every single for a decade. It was our hangout spot. We knew the bartenders and they knew what we drank.
In proper parts of the country, coffee regular, or a regular coffee, is coffee with cream and sugar. In lesser parts of the country, regular coffee means not decaf. We love them, even with this mental illness.
For many, many years, if you ordered a “regular” cup of coffee you’d get cream and sugar. Only in the last couple decades, with the popularity of all the froo-froo coffees and all the “coffee-flavored drinks” have we started getting these paragraph-long coffee orders. All the syrups and froths and foams were virtually unknown, not that long ago.
Regular means caffeinated drip coffee in my area, i.e. non-decaf. It doesn’t mean that the person themself is a regular.
If you drink coffee every day, then you definitely have a preferred way to take your coffee. Are you placing 365 distinctly different coffee orders each year? Whatever way you take it most often is your favorite.
It’s a trope. But yeah, people have preferences. “How do you take your coffee?”
I like a splash of milk or creamer. Some people might like some sugar. Some people might like it black. I know my wife doesn’t like coffee so if I go to a coffee shop, I’m getting her a matcha latte or an iced tea.
Get Starbucks practically every day on my way to work.
Venti vanilla sweet cream cold brew.
About six months ago or so I noticed they (there are three or four potential Starbucks on my way to work) started skimping on the sweet cream, so I started ordering it with extra sweet cream. I’ve been trying to cut back recently, so I don’t do the extra anymore.
Yes, 95% of the time (always in the morning) I just get the regular brewed coffee, not a cappuccino, latte or any fancy drink. Whatever they’re brewing that’s a light or medium roast.
Triple half-sweet mocha no whip. I don’t even have to order, just hand her my credit card
Tall latte. I have simple tastes.
If you’re a regular at a coffeeshop who always gets the same thing you don’t say all that. The barista says “usual order?” and you say yes.
– a former barista who remembered some people’s orders for over a decade
If you’re a regular at a coffeeshop who always gets the same thing you don’t say all that. The barista says “usual order?” and you say yes.
– a former barista who remembered some people’s orders for over a decade
Blonde roast, lots of cream, no sugar.