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This is a guest post by Mandy Kilinskis, from The Coffee Maker Store. Learn more about how you can guest post for Daily Shot Of Coffee.
Like many of you lovely readers, I like to indulge in Starbucks’ hand-crafted beverages as often as my wallet allows. While I usually settle on iced coffee or shaken iced tea lemonade, there are times when I will splurge on a delicious white chocolate mocha. Rarely does white chocolate, espresso, milk, and whipped cream cohabitate in such perfection.
But back to my wallet. While I adore the white chocolate mocha hot or cold, I can’t afford to shell out $4.50 per Grande per day. On the other hand, I don’t have the time in the morning to make any sort of copycat knockoff. So how can I get delicious espresso drinks without breaking my wallet?
Improvise.
I like the Grande Americano, myself. For approximately $2.10 you get three shots of espresso, which is one more shot than the standard for hand-crafted drinks. Lots of people overlook the Americano because it’s not very fancy. Espresso cut with water? So what? But when you start to customize this drink, you can get makeshift favorites for a lower price.
Note: this recipe works best as the iced form of the drink. Baristas get cranky when you ask them to steam milk for non-latte drinks and the ice helps cut the espresso concentration.
The order:
- Iced
- Grande Americano
- No Water – too much water = too thin of a drink
- Add White Chocolate Mocha – this will set you back 70 more cents (unless you are a Starbucks’ gold card member, then it’s free!)
- Add some milk – pick whichever kind you would get regularly
Then just make sure your drink is thoroughly mixed and enjoy! You’ll be getting 225 mg of caffeine instead of 150, and at half the price! And because you’ll have three shots of espresso instead of the regular two, the flavor will feature a little more coffee than the standard drink. But hey, that’s why we get it in the first place, right?
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Mandy Kilinskis is a content developer at Quality Logo Products, Inc. Besides being the go-to coffee guru for her office, she’s also a frequent contributor to their promotional products blog.
Photo by MrLoFi.
It’s not stealing because everything you’d be ordering is on the menu. Just a different way to get it! It’s like if I went into a McDonalds and ordered everything separately instead of in a meal deal to save a couple bucks. If Starbucks didn’t want people to customize their drinks then they shouldn’t have put options on their menu. Besides, face facts. Starbucks is still making money on this drink because their prices are inflated no matter what you order.
I’ll be trying this trick, so thanx for posting it!
As someone who can’t afford to shell out $4.50 for a drink every single day on my way to work, thank you for posting this Mandy!
Since Starbucks wants customers to be completely 100% satisfied with their drink orders, they allow (and encourage) drink customization. Therefore, I don’t see this as stealing from them, but rather making it easier for me to stop every day and enjoy. Isn’t that good business sense? Get a customer in everyday for a less expensive drink rather than only stopping once a week for an expensive drink??
From one cheap ass to another, Great post Mandy!
BaristagirlON, Benjamin, I think there’s a fine line between stealing and maximizing your dollar. And yes, I absolutely understand your argument that this could be considering stealing. However, they aren’t losing any money on the Americano, you will get charged for the white mocha unless you’re a gold card member, and they’ll put milk in a regular Americanos if you ask.
No, this doesn’t taste exactly like a standard white chocolate mocha. I’ve seen people try to create “ghetto lattes” just to go back to the standard drinks. But I, like Howard, do like an extra kick to my coffee.
hey = if they sell it what’s not to like?
you guys ought to remember that SB puts
a whole lot of thought into their pricing system.
maybe someone at corporate thought we discerning
coffee nuts just might like it a WHOLE LOT which i do.
more jolt please!
Nice to get some people talking, Maybe I need some more controversial posts. I had no idea that this guest post would cause so much controversy. I never thought of it that way, those are good points. However, I’m not too worried about Starbucks, I’m more worried about the coffee farmers.
It’s really disappointing that you would encourage people to make ghetto lattes and essentially steal from the store. If you’re too cheap to pay for your beverage, then get out and don’t make the shop suffer and lose money on your cheap-ass behalf.
It’s a shame you would put this up. I’m sorry, but I just lost some respect that you would encourage others to steal from a company, which essentially is what this is.