When you pick up a cup of hot coffee, do you casually blow on it to cool it, spoon it up with a coffee spoon, or alternate sips of coffee with bites of pastry, one hand for each? These seemingly natural actions may be stepping right into the forbidden zone of coffee etiquette. This article starts with details such as holding the cup, adding sugar, stirring, blowing to cool, and eating pastries, laying out a set of proper ways to enjoy coffee, and also discusses how to accommodate coffee lovers' habits when hosting or being a guest at home. The second half turns its gaze to flavor itself: from the bitterness of the first sip, to repeatedly seeking that cup of coffee that intoxicates you, to customizing a personal coffee step by step in a coffee shop, including options such as hot or iced, decaf, ESPRESSO strength, syrups, milk types, and personalized requests, with a recommendation from Front Street Coffee attached.
Are you enjoying the deliciousness of coffee? If the freshly brewed coffee is too hot, do you desperately blow on it to cool it down? During the process of drinking, are you in the habit of spooning it into your mouth one spoonful at a time with a coffee spoon? A pastry in your left hand and a cup of coffee in your right—doesn't that make you feel especially cozy?
Office workers in the city, have you really mastered the way to drink coffee? A reminder is unavoidable here: the practices above have actually crossed into the forbidden zone of coffee etiquette. Once you step out of that forbidden zone, you may feel you have lost the former ease of doing whatever you liked, but only in this way can you count as someone who truly understands coffee and knows coffee.
1. Do not put your fingers through the cup handle when holding the cup
Coffee drunk after a meal is usually served in a small cup.
The handle of this kind of cup is very small to begin with, and your fingers cannot fit through it at all, so there is no need to worry about embarrassing yourself in front of others. What really requires attention is when you come across a large cup: never put your fingers through the handle to hold it. The correct way is to pinch the handle with your thumb and index finger and lift the cup.
2. No need to stir strenuously after adding sugar
When adding sugar, you can use a coffee spoon to scoop granulated sugar and put it directly into the cup; or you can first use sugar tongs to place a sugar cube on the side of the coffee saucer closest to you, then use the coffee spoon to put the sugar cube into the cup. The reason for not directly throwing the sugar cube into the cup with the tongs or your hand is to prevent the coffee from splashing out and staining your clothes or the tablecloth. After adding sugar, there is no need to stir hard, because sugar and milk dissolve very quickly. If you do not like sugar or milk, you can turn the cup handle to your right side.
3. A coffee spoon is not for scooping coffee
Adding sugar and stirring coffee are the coffee spoon's proper jobs. Scooping coffee with it and drinking sip after sip is very rude, and do not use it to help crush the sugar cube in the cup either. When drinking, take the coffee spoon out of the cup and place it on the saucer.
4. Blowing on coffee to cool it is not elegant enough
Coffee is best drunk hot. If the temperature is too high, you can gently stir it with a coffee spoon to cool it down, or wait for it to cool naturally before drinking. Trying to cool coffee by blowing on it—remember, this is an inelegant action.
5. When drinking, only lift the coffee cup
Generally speaking, when drinking coffee, just lift the cup. If you lift the saucer, or hold the bottom of the cup to drink coffee, these are both rude behaviors. Only when there is no table in front of you to rely on may you hold the saucer with your left hand and the coffee cup handle with your right hand and savor it slowly. Also note that you must not grip the cup with your whole hand, gulp it down in large mouthfuls, or lower your head toward the coffee cup. When coffee is being added, do not lift the coffee cup from the saucer.
6. Drinking coffee and eating pastries should be staggered
You may eat pastries while drinking coffee, but you cannot hold the coffee cup in one hand and a pastry in the other, alternating between a bite and a sip. The correct way is: when drinking coffee, put down the pastry; when eating pastries, put down the coffee cup.
7. Special reminders for hosting and being a guest at home
When hosting guests for coffee at home, as the host you should not take care of everything yourself, especially when the guest happens to be a coffee lover—let them add milk and sugar themselves, because they are very particular about it. In addition, you should carefully prepare a glass of cold boiled water for a coffee connoisseur, so that the guest can alternate between cold boiled water and coffee and experience the coffee's flavor.
When you are a guest at a friend's home drinking coffee, there is no need to be overly polite; finish the coffee while it is hot—only then do you appear polite. However, do not gulp it down in one go; sip it slowly instead. If you only focus on chatting and leave the coffee neglected to one side, that is what truly wastes the host's kindness.
Find your personal coffee
After the first sip of coffee, those who are not used to it may cry out that it is so bitter. But the fact is, coffee has countless fans. When you unexpectedly finally find a coffee that intoxicates you, only to discover afterward that you can never find it again, as if it were playing hide-and-seek with you, you try again and again, and it is still never the one that moves you. So all you have left to do is find the coffee that belongs to you. Follow our questions and find your coffee taste.
Customize a personal coffee
If you can never find the YES answer that matches your thoughts in the multiple-choice questions on the left and right pages, this shows that only a personally customized coffee best suits your needs. Master the following steps, and in any coffee shop you can customize a personal coffee that best matches your own taste according to your preferences.
State whether you want it iced or hot.
Whether you need decaf: if you are worried that caffeine will cause insomnia, you can ask for decaf coffee.
The dose of ESPRESSO concentrate: if you especially love coffee's bittersweet richness and aroma, you can ask for a double ESPRESSO.
Syrup flavor: usually coffee shops have syrups in flavors such as vanilla, chocolate, hazelnut, and raspberry.
Which milk to add: besides whole milk and skim milk, some coffee shops also offer soy milk as an option, considering that some people are allergic to milk.
Personal requests: for example, whether you want it especially hot, or how much ice or milk foam you need.
Coffee name: for example, mocha, latte, cappuccino, Americano, etc.
Front Street Coffee recommendation: if you want to start practicing these details with a truly meticulous cup of coffee, you might as well try Front Street Coffee's beans and drinks. It performs well in both flavor and quality, and is suitable as a choice for daily drinking and hosting guests.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
