If At First You Don’t Succeed, Chai And Chai Again
(I’ve lived in Seattle all my life. I speak coffee even though I’m allergic to the stuff. I like tea, though, and when I moved into my current apartment a bit over ten years ago, I went looking for a place to buy hot tea in the neighborhood. There was one place that seemed perfect. They had nice seating, they made their own masala chai in-house rather than using concentrate, their prices were reasonable, and they had other teas on the menu. The way ordering worked, you said what you wanted — masala chai, drip coffee, hot chocolate, whatever — then added qualifiers like large, small, add espresso shot, latte, etc. But, for some reason, ordering a “chai latte” always resulted in a cafe — coffee — latte no matter how you phrased it. This is how things went with my final attempt, right before I was banned for life for “harassing” the barista:)
Me: “Large hot chai latte, please.”
Barista: *gives me cafe latte*
Me: “No, I don’t want coffee with milk; I want spiced tea with milk”
Barista: *adds a teabag to my already-made coffee*
Me: “No, no coffee. No espresso shots. I want tea!”
Barista: *pours out the dirty chai, makes a plain chai*
Me: “No, again, that’s wrong. I want chai tea with milk, not any kind of coffee or coffee shots, just tea.”
Barista: *pours out plain chai instead of simply adding steamed milk, then makes new iced dirty chai latte with two espresso shots*
Me: *wanting to facepalm* “No, that’s an iced dirty chai latte. I ordered a hot chai latte; don’t add anything to it but steamed milk.”
Barista: *makes me a steamed milk, no coffee OR tea in it*
Me: “I suppose that’s better than giving me coffee, but I want some tea in my milk, not just milk. Let’s start over. I want a hot chai tea latte, just like the menu says. Do not put any kind of coffee in it!”
Barista: *makes a hot cafe latte*
Me: “I want tea, not coffee. Would it help if I said I was allergic to coffee and that’s why I don’t want any coffee in my drink?”
Barista: *calls owner*
Owner: “I think you’ve harassed my workers long enough. Take your coffee, on the house, and leave. Don’t come back.”
Me: “I am just trying to get hot tea with steamed milk; they keep adding coffee to it. I am allergic to coffee.”
Owner: “Don’t make me call the police. Out. Now.”
(And that is why I never go to what was, at the time, the closest good tea and coffee shop to where I live. Since then, two chain coffee shops have moved in closer to me, but they’re both more expensive and not as good.)
