Earlier this week, one of Sprudge’s editors visited the coffee shop, as Sprudge editors usually do. It was a good shop, fitting into the ever-expanding definition of a specialty café. So they ordered a macchiato, where they were asked, “You mean the miniature ones, right? Not Starbucks?”
How which we wrote about on Instagramthe question seemed anachronistic, referring to the early days when specialty coffee was struggling fiercely to stand out from places like Starbucks. From the perspective of an outsider, that is, someone whose everyday life does not involve changing bars, this question is almost unthinkable. 15 years have passed and the fight is over. Specialty coffee is a household product. But is this true?
So we asked a question on Instagram: Do your coffee shop customers still think that “macchiato” means a immense Starbucks drink with all the caramel? The brief answer is that yes, all the time.
Of the nearly 1,000 survey responses as of press time, a whopping 70% of followers responded, “Yes, it still happens.” Another 25% of respondents chose “Unfortunately, it still happens sometimes.” This means that, according to this purely research survey, approximately 95% of cafes still have to deal with the issue of Macchiato on a daily basis.
It’s just amazing. And annoying! Nevertheless, the question allowed respondents to provide thoughtful answers about the importance of hospitality and the need to meet customers where they are. (There were also a lot of bad takes, but we won’t talk about them). So, as we take stock of the state of the union for specialty coffee in 2025, we’ve collected some of the comments here.
First of all, it still requires clarification as to what “macchiato” means to the customer here in the Twenty-Fifth Year of our Lord. “Yes. All the time” (twice), “Every day,” “It’s crazy, but yes,” “Every. Single day.”, “We still have to explain *every time*,” etc. You get the point.
So there is still confusion. It’s a lot. So the question becomes how the coffee shop chooses to deal with this, as many people see it as leading to “some valuable conversations, so maybe it’s still a win?” “We love it when someone asks for a macchiato… it opens the door to conversation because we want to make the right drink.” Another said: “In an industry dependent on good hospitality and communication, has asking clarifying questions ever gone out of style?”
Some coffee shops try to avoid confusion by not using the name at all, instead asking customers to order by drink size. Others apply alternative names such as “cortado” (which may present a completely different set of naming problems, but at least it’s possible) and “noisette”.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway is not the lack of movement in understanding the customer, but coming from the other side of the bar. In 2010, if you had the audacity to order a macchiato at a specialty coffee shop and you had in mind a 20-ounce vanilla latte with a generous dollop of caramel drizzle, you risked being criticized by a guy who looked like he was driving to work for pennies. This is no longer the case. Hospitality is as vital, if not more vital, than the coffee itself. (Whether the pendulum has swung too far in favor of hospitality to the detriment of coffee quality and consistency is a topic for a much more heated – but perhaps necessary? – debate another time.)
In 2025, you can order anything you want, from the smallest ristretto to an XL-flavored latte, and a good coffee shop will try to prepare the best possible version of this drink for you without mockery. Which is a good thing. Even if the question about macchiato takes you to the era of the behind schedule years, mustaches spinning a death spiral.
