I may have to change my views on caramel lattes
For reasons that run from bad weather to a poorly wife, I was in Guildford this morning. While my wife went off in the car to do a job, I went to Starbucks. I’m not a frequent visitor — to Guildford or Starbucks.
I ordered my black Americano and gave my name, which seems to be a thing now. I always wonder if I should give a pseudonym in these situations. You never know who could be tracking our coffee choices.
Too slow, as usual, I gave my real name. I didn’t want to sound too formal, so I left it at ‘Graham’, without the middle initial or surname. I’m of an age that requests for names brings up memories of giving the full thing to someone nominally in authority, usually followed by age and address. The barista didn’t seem inclined to want any more information, so I retreated to a table and waited for my name to be called.
After a hot chocolate and an espresso and a latte had been dispensed, a new drink was placed on the counter and my name called. I approached. The mug looked very milky. It had some sort of swirly design embossed on the surface of the drink, a feat beyond the most talented barista faced with a black coffee, surely.
I made a vague gesture to the mug. The barista smiled: “Caramel latte for Graham”, she said. My vague hand gesture became even more vague. I immediately worried about my diction: my name had come across clearly, obviously, but somehow ‘grande black Americano’ had morphed in the hearing of the woman who took my order into grande caramel latte. Was that even possible? I’m not sure I could have managed that transformation drunk or shortly after a trip to the dentist. But there it was and there I was.
I don’t even know what a caramel latte is. I’m not even sure what a latte is when compared to a white coffee. If I asked for a white Americano instead of black, would I get a latte? A flat white? Where does the cappuccino come in? And that’s before we discuss the cup sizes. Or mugs. Or jugs.
If you switch between coffee shops — like I do, because I’m just plain flighty that way — it’s important to remember what sizes mean. Size matters. Really. God forbid you ask for a medium (or a ‘medio’) in a shop where we leap from regular to large. And ‘small’? Getouttahere! Small is the new regular. Or should that be the other way round? Then we have large and grande and tall and exceedingly handsome. In some shops the large is of a size you can carry to the table without assistance. In other shops the equivalent of the large — however named — requires a man and a van and a small crane to lift the container onto your especially reinforced table. Then you watch it grow cold because it is impossible to lift it to your lips. This drink size should be named the Tantalus.
I’m not a sophisticated man: a strong black coffee in a middling sized mug is what I tend to go for. Any more choices forced on me and I am liable to panic and run.
I digress. This is what happens when you’ve been away too long from Medium (12 months!) and forget how to structure anything resembling a story. Apologies.
So, I’m about to mount the high horse that I tend to take with me wherever I wander these days and set my mouth in a sort of sneer to deliver the obvious but punchy phrase that springs to mind. I’m about to say, “Do I look the sort of man who would order a caramel latte?” when a guy behind me, who, to be fair, doesn’t look like the sort of man who would order a caramel latte, says, “that’s for me”.
Then the barista plays her trump card. “There are two Grahams,” she says. “So be careful.”
Graham is not a common name. It wasn’t even a common name when my parents chose it. I have met very few other Grahams in my life. A handful, really. There have been between zero and a number only slightly larger celebrities with the name. Graham Greene was an outlier, obviously.
And here, in a town I visit rarely, in a coffee shop I had never been before, were two Grahams waiting for hot drinks at the same time. That’s not a coincidence. That, surely, must be a sign.
That this other Graham didn’t look like the sort of man who would order a caramel latte meant I obviously had some preconceptions to work through. He actually had a touch of the Neil Gaiman about him. His slightly unruly hair, mainly. Perhaps that’s the secret of Gaiman’s hair: caramel lattes. Perhaps, too, that’s what drew Amanda Palmer his way.
I was beginning to think about caramel lattes in a whole new way.
Then my coffee arrived, I picked it up, and we two Grahams retreated to separate tables without ever pursuing the mystery or potential of our encounter. Or discussing writing.
Next time: two Fionas share a summer berry smoothie experience at the M&S self-service check-out.
