11 Drinks That Are Red Flags For Starbucks Baristas

For many people, visiting their local Starbucks for a favorite latte or Frappuccino is a daily ritual or even a form of self-care. And sure, making coffee with an excellent coffee maker at home is simpler than ever, but that daily cup of joe somehow just tastes better when someone else prepares it. So somewhere between the ambiance of the coffee shop, the friendly baristas, and that first sip of sweetened deliciousness, many have fallen in love with the coffee giant.

And yet, at any Starbucks location, there's a whole world behind the counter that most customers never learn about. Amongst the hustle and bustle, there's a barista preparing a regular's drink in a very specific manner and another who has become the Frappuccino aficionado that all the teens in the surrounding city know by name. All told, every Starbucks location has its own story. Baristas, or the staff who prepare your coffee, are integral to that Starbucks story. Though a specific customer's drink order will generally get lost in the mix of memories throughout the day, a few drinks stand out as red flags to baristas. A red flag, in the world of Starbucks, is a drink that is complicated, a little dangerous, unusual, or otherwise makes baristas behind the bar raise an eyebrow. Of course, many of these drinks are absolute favorites of ours, so don't take it personally if your go-to appears among these red flags; we're right there with you.

Every now and then, a secret menu Starbucks drink finds its way onto the regular menu. The Medicine Ball is one of these drinks. It became an official menu item after going viral and store managers reported selling dozens of them each day. The drink is best prepared in a venti cup with two tea bags: one Peach Tranquility and one Jade Citrus Mint. Those are then steeped in a mixture of hot water and steamed lemonade. Finally, the whole thing gets a healthy dose of honey to finish it off.

While the Medicine Ball isn't a regular menu item anymore, you can still order it in person or on the app, but you may want to take great pause when you do so. After all, the Medicine Ball is associated with a person who is feeling under the weather. As a result, this drink has become a major red flag for baristas and alerts them to stay away from the person ordering it. No one wants to get sick, and in the era of COVID, there is so much more at stake than a simple cold. Thankfully, if you're in desperate need of a Medicine Ball, but shouldn't go out, you can replicate the beverage at home by buying the Teavana bags from your local grocery store. Also, if you'd like the drink to be a little less sweet, you could add lemon to your water rather than a mixture of steamed lemonade and water.

The difference between a latte and a cappuccino can be a little complicated. After all, both drinks involve three basic elements: espresso, milk, and foam. Where's the difference, then? It's between the amount of milk and foam in each type of drink. Cappuccinos, when made correctly, need to have roughly half of their weight accounted for in foam. When ordering in a coffee shop, you can also specify if you want your cappuccino to be extra dry or extra wet.

An Extra Wet Cappuccino is, more or less, a latte. An Extra Dry Cappuccino, though, is something else entirely. It will be coffee with almost entirely foam on top. When someone orders an Extra Dry Cappuccino, it can be a red flag for baristas because this type of drink is difficult to get right. Though the process is simple, getting the weight just right for the customer can be demanding because the customer typically knows precisely what they want, and nothing else will do.

Another thing that can make a barista nervous about a cappuccino is how similar the word sounds to a Frappuccino. While a cappuccino is a hot drink that is normally unflavored, a Frappuccino is blended, with the coffee taste being secondary. It is easy to confuse the two terms. If a customer is handed a hot drink when they expect a blended one, it can create a difficult situation that leaves the barista behind on drink preparation and the customer unhappy.

Just like an extra dry cappuccino can be a red flag, so can the concept of an Iced Cappuccino. No such drink exists on the Starbucks menu, but it once did. Essentially, an Iced Cappuccino involved making an Iced Latte and then topping it with hot foamed milk, as a barista would with a typical cappuccino. However, Reddit reports plenty of confusion between baristas about what and if an Iced Cappuccino exists. In fact, some baristas will prepare an Iced Latte with cold foam on top if a customer orders an Iced Cappuccino today.

But that isn't the only issue with these drinks. Many people are used to getting cold or even frozen coffee at gas stations, often called cappuccinos. Wawa, for example, offers a Mocha or Caramel Cappuccino, and this drink is a frozen coffee beverage. This can create a fair amount of confusion for new Starbucks visitors when they first arrive at Starbucks. To order a favorite drink similar to what they get at a gas station, you may hear a customer order a flavored Iced Cappuccino when they probably mean a Frappuccino or Iced Latte. In our mind, the easiest way to get an Iced Cappuccino is to order an Iced Coffee with cold foam on top. Even still, translating a true cappuccino to an iced version isn't really possible.

A typical hot Starbucks drink is steamed to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. However, you can ask for a drink to be steamed to a cooler or even hotter temperature. If you choose to have an extra hot drink, you'll end up with a drink that is roughly 180 degrees. Though this increase may not seem like a lot, it is actually much hotter.

This request is a red flag for several reasons. For one, a drink this hot may end up with a different taste. While you may have ordered the drink hot so it would be ready for you to drink later on, this may negatively impact your experience. If you're planning on drinking it right away, the drink may be way too hot to enjoy and could potentially burn you. So, if you choose to order an extra hot latte, don't be surprised if your barista winces as they hand it to you, be sure not to spill it all over yourself, and don't take a drink too early.

We promise we're not poking at White Chocolate Mocha here. We love this flavor sauce, but it does have a relative minefield of potential red flags. One of these comes from sheer concern for the customer. Just as there are plenty of ways to customize a drink to your taste preference, there are also plenty of ways to alter a drink for your health. For example, some may choose non-fat milk or sugar-free syrup, and other customers order their drinks in such a way as to avoid dairy.

When a customer orders a drink with non-dairy milk, it is normally an indication that they are trying to avoid dairy. This is very easy to do at Starbucks because most syrups are dairy free. The sauces, on the other hand, are a little more complicated. White chocolate mocha sauce, for one, has dairy in the form of condensed skim milk, via Starbucks. However, this may be a little unexpected because regular mocha sauce does not have dairy, according to Starbucks' nutrition facts. So when a customer orders a White Chocolate Mocha with oat milk, baristas will grapple with the decision of whether they should point out that the White Chocolate Mocha is a dairy product. This discussion could result in a frustrating and uncomfortable confrontation or even a thankful one. But if a barista does not mention it, they run the risk of the customer potentially feeling unwell later on. It's an uneasy tightrope walk.