Should you tip at coffee shops?

November 20, 2020
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And other questions of coffee shop etiquette

<Coffee for the Average Josh, Part 8 of 10>

A 2019 survey by creditcards.com found that 24 percent of Americans always tip their coffee shop baristas, while 27 percent never do.

That leaves roughly half of us stuck in the land of “it depends.”

Looking for clarity when you step up to the counter?  Let’s explore:

  • Reasons you should consider leaving a tip
  • Reasons you may feel compelled to leave a tip, but really shouldn’t
  • Best practices for how much to tip
  • And a few other shots of coffee shop etiquette

8 good reasons to tip for your coffee

  1. Service: Sometimes you receive incredible service, but sometimes … not. Do you leave the shop feeling well taken care of? Tipping is a way to say thanks.
  2. Craftsmanship: More often than not, the best cups of coffee are directly tied to a barista’s experience, skill and knowledge. When you receive beautiful latte art. When you learn something new. When you find the barista who always wows you with that cappuccino. Coffee craftsmanship adds value.
  3. Quantity: Sometimes you order a small cup of drip coffee, but sometimes you’re picking up for the whole office. It takes a lot of skill to make multiple drinks at once, particularly if a line starts piling up behind you.
  4. Customization: Do you order straight off the menu, or do you have special requests for your drink? It’s kind to make it worth the barista’s extra time and understanding when they go out of their way to meet the specs of a special request.
  5. Duration of stay: Do you love to park at a table for a couple hours and get some work done? That’s great, but you’re also using space that could turn away additional customers if a shop is full, not to mention the wi-fi and other utilities owners pay to keep you comfortable. Show that you appreciate this access to a “second office.”
  6. Vibe: Some shops just feel comfortable. Some invest heavily not just in your coffee but in your experience. If the place has a magnetic effect on your soul, a tip is one good way to express gratitude.
  7. Regularity: If you’re a regular, chances are you’re not only investing in a favorite shop, but they’re investing in you. They know your name, your order and the vehicle you drive. Try getting that level of relational service anywhere else.
  8. Support: I am grateful for baristas. It’s a line of work where excellence can clearly be tasted. But the average wages aren’t typically enough of a carrot for baristas to invest in the job as a career. These are also human beings who work a busy job and have bad days like everyone else. A tip doesn’t have to only be a statement of gratitude, it can also be a statement of support.

2 bad reasons to tip for your coffee

  1. Prompt pressure: These days, if you swipe a card, you can expect the screen to swivel and tip options to be presented — typically $1, $2, $3 or 10%, 15%, 20%. There are also typically buttons for “no tip” and “custom tip.” For me, prompts take part of the joy out of tipping because I’m being asked to do something I already wanted to do — but without being asked. They also usually suggest preset amounts, making it potentially clunky or awkward to change the amount that was preset — even if you wanted to tip more. If you are feeling bullied by a screen prompt, pause and take the time to leave the tip you want to leave. There’s no harm in it.  
  2. Peer pressure: Things get trickier when people are watching. And they often are, whether standing in line behind you or making your coffee. In fact, because of COVID restrictions, baristas are often put in the awkward position of asking for their own tip and inputting the amount for you. Anymore, when I want to leave a tip I often mention it when I’m taking out my credit card, something like, “How may I add a $1 tip on this?” To me, it relieves the tension. But what do you do if you are just grabbing a drip coffee to go and don’t want to be prompted about a $1 tip on a $2 drink? Press, “no tip,” and don’t feel bad about it. If you’re asked about tip options, just say, “no, thank you.” There are plenty of great reasons you may want to leave a tip, but peer pressure isn’t one of them.

How much should you tip for your coffee?

From a straight etiquette standpoint, the Emily Post Institute groups coffee shops in the “no obligation” category. Like carryout, tipping is discretionary but warranted if a “barista provides a little something extra or if you are a regular customer.”

In an informal poll of people I know who love coffee, a common rule of thumb is it’s generous to tip $1 per drink, but perfectly acceptable to tip change from a small transaction or calculate out a percentage you’re comfortable with.

If you use percentages, the ranges can swing much more wildly than they might at a dine-in restaurant. For instance, $1 on a $3 small latte is a whopping 33 percent tip, while dropping a couple quarters’ change in a tip jar on a $10 order is only 5 percent. But neither is an unusual occurrence.

Hence the word “discretionary.” Consider the good reasons to tip. Consider your own financial situation. And remember: Generosity is good for the soul.  

Other coffee shop etiquette

I asked a few coffee friends for other pieces of etiquette people should keep in mind when visiting their shops, and here are three final things worth noting.

  1. Don’t talk on your cell phone while ordering. That one feels like it should be a common courtesy, but we humans tend to have a way of self-justifying behavior in a moment that we may have criticized if we saw it elsewhere.
  2. Don’t set up an oblivious office. Working out of a coffee shop is great, but be self-aware. As a friend who owns a coffee shop told me, “one person spreading out work on a four-top table is pretty rough for us — especially now that we’re in a pandemic and at half occupancy.”
  3. Don’t ask a shop to bend to your own tastes. No, I don’t mean you can’t order what you want. What I mean is that the person who owns the shop invested a lot of their own passions and personality in picking out the décor, choosing the setlist, and selecting the recipes. As a friend put it, “I would love if people would allow the business to thrive as it is and not as they wish it was. So many businesses do the same thing as everyone else because they felt they could not succeed if they didn’t compromise their original vision to appease people.” Local coffee shops offer a uniqueness worth celebrating.

Next week: “Black Friday: Give the gift of a local coffee roast”

This is the eighth in a 10-part series, “Coffee for the Average Josh,” releasing Fridays this fall. Get your fix of Coffee 101 by signing up to receive an email when the next post drops.

Previous:

  1. Where do coffee babies come from? (Oct. 2, 2020)
  2. Growing up on the coffee farm (Oct. 9, 2020)
  3. 3 reasons to pay more for your coffee (Oct. 16, 2020)
  4. 5 factors of great-tasting coffee (Oct. 23, 2020)
  5. How do you take your coffee? (Oct. 30, 2020)
  6. What is espresso? (Nov. 6, 2020)
  7. What’s the difference: cappuccino, latte, mocha, americano? (Nov. 13, 2020)
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Would you do me a favor?

Join the CoffeeJosh mailing list. It’s hurry-free, spam-free and also free … free. As a thanks, I’ll send you a PDF — you guessed it, free — that has 10 of the best coffee shop orders in the Spokane area. (All 10 are drinks and treats local coffee shop owners make for themselves. In this case, expect to pay for your order and feel like it was totally worth it.)

What’s the difference: cappuccino, latte, mocha, americano?

November 13, 2020
2

Touring four staples of the American espresso menu

<Coffee for the Average Josh, Part 7 of 10>

What’s the right way to make a cappuccino? What is the proper ratio of espresso to milk to foam? Should it include a dusting of cinnamon or chocolate powder? Is a proper cappuccino wet or dry?

Cue Magic 8 Ball: “Reply hazy.”

You may as well ask me the right way to make a chocolate chip cookie. (It’s my wife’s recipe, and my youngest daughter nearly has it mastered, too.)

But while the “right” way is open to interpretation, a basic definition can help when touring four pillars of most American espresso menus: the cappuccino, latte, mocha and americano.

Cappuccino

What is it

Espresso topped by steamed milk topped by a thick layer of milk foam.

Trivia trio

  1. Monk business: Cappuccino takes its name from the Capuchin friars of Italy. When the drink was introduced in Italy, people thought the color of the espresso mixed with frothed milk looked similar to the color of a Capuchin robe. Note these same monks were so famous for their color scheme, when a species of similarly shaded primates were discovered in Central America they were dubbed “capuchin monkeys.”
  2. Wet vs. dry: The baseline for a traditional cappuccino is usually understood to include the milk and foam in equal quantities. Want more foam and less milk in the middle? Order your cappuccino dry. Want less foam and more milk? Order it wet, though some will argue you are elbowing into latte territory at this point.
  3. Sweet venti lies: A traditional cappuccino is known for a strong espresso flavor and for reasonably equal parts of milk and foam. Because of this, a cappuccino traditionalist will tell you that the idea of a 20-ounce cappuccino (or really anything much more than 8 ounces), is laughable. Why? The larger the drink, the more milk required, which dilutes the strength of the taste and makes achieving even ratios impossible. (Making the “microfoam” in large quantities is either a) impossible or b) requires ridiculous amounts of milk, depending on who you ask.)

Latte

What is it

Espresso topped by a generous amount of steamed milk topped by a thin layer of milk foam.

Trivia trio

  1. Gateway drug: Lattes are famously creamy. Indeed, espresso is such an intense coffee experience that when it first migrated out of Italy, foreigners found it bitter so they sweetened it with generous ratios of hot milk. The latte was born, and we are still experimenting with the right ratios of espresso dilution to this day. For many, this not only includes milk but a litany of syrups.
  2. Don’t order in Italy: When in Rome, be sure to order a “caffe latte.” Make the mistake of ordering just a latte, and the waiter will bring you a glass of milk. (“Latte” means milk in Italian. In a pinch, though, I think “Oreo” still means Oreo.)
  3. Not black and (flat) white: Want to add a layer of interpretation to the difference between a cappuccino and a latte? Done. The extra layer is called a flat white. The anecdotal origins of the flat white go back to Australians and Kiwis feeling ripped off by all the foam they were being served on their cappuccinos. Instead of a cup filled with “air,” they wanted it filled to the top with the foam chopped off — a flat, white coffee of espresso and milk. Thus, the flat white sounds very much like an Australian latte. Perhaps, but if you need to differentiate, here are two ways: 1) the foam on top may be even flatter in a flat white; 2) the drink typically features a stronger coffee flavor than a latte, gained by using a higher ratio of espresso to milk and/or ristretto shots.  

Mocha

What is it

Espresso topped by steamed milk, milk foam, and chocolate (ooh, and maybe whipped cream!)

Trivia trio

  1. Cuckoo for cocoa: A mocha is a latte with chocolate, but from here the recipe diverts a million ways: varieties of chocolate from white to dark, forms of chocolate from syrup to powder, quantities of chocolate from chunks to dusting.
  2. Mocha vs. Mokha vs. Moka vs. Moca vs. Mocca: The word “mocha” first got mixed up with coffee not thanks to chocolate, but thanks to a port in Yemen. A Yemeni bean exported out of the Port of Mokha came to be referred to as mocha coffee. This coffee became so popular that many people took to calling coffee “mocha” the way some people call it joe. But the confusion was just getting started. In the 1930s, an Italian inventor came up with a new pot for brewing coffee and called it Moka (after this same port, by all indications). So it naturally follows that today, most American consumers only know the word mocha as referring to chocolatey coffee. Say what?
  3. So … about the chocolate: OK, so there are a couple possibilities as to how mocha became associated with chocolate. The first is that the Yemeni mocha bean wasn’t as fruity or floral as coffee from other regions and was more likely described as earthy — even “chocolatey.” At least that makes some sense. Another school of thought is that someone — probably an American — randomly put chocolate coffee on a menu as “mocha” one day and the muddled marketing just stuck. Either way, the word is far more rooted in an ancient Yemeni port than it is in chocolate.

Americano

What is it

Espresso mixed with hot water

Trivia trio

  1. It’s that dilution thing again: Like milk’s role in a latte, water serves as the americano’s star in taking the edge off the strong espresso taste. As such, the ratio of water to espresso can vary widely depending on the desired result.
  2. The ‘long black’ difference: A common way to make an Americano is to brew espresso and “just add water.” Some prefer the opposite approach, however: start with water and brew or pour the espresso on top. This drink is referred to as a long black, and its difference chiefly lies in the crema produced by the espresso. When poured last, it is less disturbed or mixed into the drink. Some people prefer this, while others find the crema, while pleasing to look at, adds unnecessary bitterness to the drink and should be removed.   
  3. Made in America? There’s no doubt the name “americano” is a direct connection to America (the word is Italian for “American”). The most popular origin story may be apocryphal, but it’s become widespread: American GIs sent to Italy during and following World War II found the espresso to be too strong. They longed for coffee that tasted more like what they were used to back home, so they added water. Presto, americano!

Next week: “How much should I tip? (And other coffeeshop etiquette)”

This is the seventh in a 10-part series, “Coffee for the Average Josh,” releasing Fridays this fall. Get your fix of Coffee 101 by signing up to receive an email when the next post drops.

Previous:

  1. Where do coffee babies come from? (Oct. 2, 2020)
  2. Growing up on the coffee farm (Oct. 9, 2020)
  3. 3 reasons to pay more for your coffee (Oct. 16, 2020)
  4. 5 factors of great-tasting coffee (Oct. 23, 2020)
  5. How do you take your coffee? (Oct. 30, 2020)
  6. What is espresso? (Nov. 6, 2020)

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