Yes, I am Judging Your Coffee Order: Insight From a Marylou’s Barista

I started out my coffee drinking career just as any other girl from New England does– with a medium iced caramel swirl with cream and sugar (preferably with more of those two than coffee itself) from Dunkin. I vividly remember once back in the 7th grade, I placed my order for my Dunkin coffee, to which the girl behind the counter responded, “Oh, so you mean the basic white b*tch?” . Back then I was quite baffled, but now I laugh at the accuracy of her statement. 

As a preface I would like to say two things: 1) I use the term barista extremely lightly. If you have ever had Marylou’s coffee (our stores are strictly in the south shore of Mass and into Rhode Island), you know that most of our drinks are more on the lines of dessert than coffee. However, for the sake of a catchy title, barista has a better ring to it than coffee maker. 2) Taste and preference are completely subjective. I promise I am not actually judging you and I doubt any other workers are either, so don’t be scared to order your coffee, it’s all in good fun! But now, prepare to be roasted. 

If you order your coffee with a substantial amount more than the standard of cream: Do you even like coffee? How can your body handle that much dairy (no like actually, I wish I was you.)? I once had a customer that used to make me fill the cup with ¾ coffee and ¼ cream. I was slightly concerned for her well-being but just pretended that it didn’t pain me to pump the cream about 123342 times into her cup. 

If you order your iced coffee black: is everything okay at home? Do you need to talk about anything? Why do you need something so bitter? However, I suppose I do understand slightly. Sometimes you just need that caffeine straight into your bloodstream– with no milk or cream or sugar standing in your way. 

If you order a regular hot coffee black: why did you even buy coffee? That is genuinely the easiest of all coffees to make. Please, I am sure it will save you so much money if you just invest in your own coffee maker and grounds or even a Keurig instead of buying a plain hot coffee every morning. However, I am all for treating yourself so if you really want to do that with a hot regular black, by all means go ahead. 

If you order your coffee with soy or skim milk: what is good about either of those options? Soy is definitely at the bottom of the totem pole for dairy alternatives. At least get almond milk or even oat milk if you are feeling risky. Soy milk, in my experience, is always slightly weird looking. Skim milk on the other hand– what even is that? It is still dairy so you might as well go big or go home and get the whole milk. 

If you order a frozen drink: this time I am actually judging you, I’m so sorry. But why? Why must you have a glorified milkshake every morning at 6 AM? I can’t even lie, there isn’t even any caffeine in those. You are just sipping on straight milk and sugar, which can’t be that tasty, and simultaneously forcing me to clean the blender. BUT, I will admit they are slightly tasty (once again though, share your secrets, how do you handle that dairy?). 

I think the list could go on forever however, I will stop here to spare those of you who were not directly attacked for your coffee order. If you want to judge me, here are my go to orders: 

Marylou’s: Blueberry Cinnamon Crumble with whole milk or a Cinnamon Hazelnut Fluff black if I want one of our specialty drinks.

Dunkin: Caramel swirl with whole milk (I LOVED the toasted coconut but they got rid of it).

Starbucks: Blonde vanilla latte or a caramel macchiato :).

No matter what you drink, I hope you enjoy it. Now go get yourself a coffee for the day. 

• coffee
• dunkin’