MoNomo guide
Coffee 101
You are an adult. Your mug can hold whatever you want.
Start here
Your first coffee should not taste like coffee. Order a vanilla latte or a mocha: mostly steamed milk, a little espresso, plenty of sugar. Iced versions are even gentler. Nobody hands out medals for drinking it black on day one.
The menu, decoded
- Drip / brewed
- Regular coffee. What your non-Mormon coworkers have been drinking this whole time.
- Espresso
- A small, strong shot. The base for most of the fancy drinks.
- Americano
- Espresso plus hot water. Drip coffee's cooler cousin.
- Latte
- Espresso plus lots of steamed milk. The beginner's best friend.
- Cappuccino
- Espresso with less milk and more foam. Stronger than a latte.
- Flat white
- Like a latte with less foam and more coffee flavor.
- Mocha
- A latte with chocolate. Basically hot cocoa that went to college.
- Cold brew
- Steeped cold for hours. Smoother, often stronger. Sneaky.
Caffeine, for the zero-tolerance crowd
An 8 oz cup of brewed coffee has roughly 80 to 100 mg of caffeine. The FDA says up to 400 mg a day is generally fine for healthy adults. Your tolerance is Diet Coke at best, so start with one drink, before noon. A venti at 4pm is how you meet 3am.
Source: FDA, "Spilling the Beans"
Making it at home
A French press is cheap and hard to mess up. Use about 1 gram of coarse-ground coffee per 15 grams of water (roughly 2 tablespoons per 6 oz), water just off the boil, steep 4 minutes, press, and pour right away so it doesn't turn bitter.
Etiquette
Know your order before you reach the counter. "Small, medium, large" works; you don't have to learn their size words. Tip the barista. They are the closest thing you have to a new bishop, and they actually help.
Hot chocolate was always allowed. Nobody has ever explained why.