What your cup of coffee says about you

Now that the cappuccino is out of fashion, will you be drinking flat white or double espresso?

Cappuccino sippers of the world unite! Your existence is under threat. Earlier this month it emerged that Starbucks - pan-galactic vendor of coffee-themed warm milk products to time-pressed urban professionals - has begun to phase out the cappuccino from its menus.

Once seen as the height of sophistication (in 1964, perhaps), the combination of espresso and foamed milk has failed to see off the competition from the latte, the flat white and the drip filter (the johnny-come-lately of the coffee world). The company confirmed that it had ceased to list the cappuccino in its heartlands of San Francisco, New York and Seattle (the site of the first Starbucks). Where America goes in terms of chocolate sprinkles and almond milk, I'm afraid the UK usually follows - and it may only be a matter of time before Costa and Pret a Manger follow suit. We can only hope that mainland Europe holds out a little longer.

An espresso brews in Italy on June 3. For some, a double espresso is the choice of the intellectual sophisticate. Stefano Rellandini / Reuters

What did the cappuccino do to deserve this fate? According to one former Starbucks employee it's less a la mode than the stronger and more velveteen flat white and a lot fiddlier than the latte. Apparently, baristas have always struggled with the foam. Which is strange, because every single cafe employee in Italy can make them perfectly without feeling the need to call themselves "baristas", either. In truth, the cappuccino has only ever attained its full majesty in its homeland, where it is served in the morning (never after dinner!), in a nice china cup (never a paper beaker!) and remains a gossamer little treat.

According Dr Ramani Durvasala, a Los Angeles-based psychologist and author of You Are WHY You Eat, cappuccino-drinkers will take the loss badly. She concluded in a no-doubt highly rigorous study last year those who order cappuccinos are "controlling" and "overly sensitive". Unlike instant coffee-drinkers ("laid-back"), black coffee-imbibers ("purist") and latte-suckers ("neurotic").

Still, careful observation of customers at my local coffee emporium reveals that it's a little more complicated than that. You can tell a lot about someone by their relationship with their daily cup.

Skinny latte

The Diet Coke of the hot beverage world and the default choice of the slightly harassed mother/career woman. It promises the maternal comfort of warm milk and a gentle bump of caffeine but without the calories. The joke is of course on them as the evidence now suggests that whole milk is less fattening than skimmed milk (it's to do with the way sugar is absorbed, apparently). All those wasted years!

Regular latte

The choice of the well-respected man who will never rise beyond middle management. Once opted for the gingerbread version - a bit silly, really! But does enjoy an occasional strawberry yum-yum.

Soya flat white

The tell-tale sign of the lactose-intolerant, gluten-spurning, orthorexic control freak. If you do happen to suffer from any of these modern afflictions, the dignified order is black coffee.

Almond milk flat white

As above, but also has a large Instragram following, a line of yoga-wear and a bestselling cook book.

Erm ... can I just have ... a normal coffee ... white two sugars ... oh fiddlesticks what is it called these days?

You can hardly blame the upstanding pensioner for their moment of panic as the milk machines hiss and the time-pushed East European workers hammer spent grounds from the espresso pods and fail to understand their order. Unfortunately, "coffee" ceased to exist in approximately 2003. What you're after is "white filter" (a sort of brownish dishwater) or "white Americano" (espresso topped with too much water.)

Instant coffee

"Builder's coffee" may be hard to find outside greasy spoons and church coffee mornings, but when a typical morning cup costs ￡2.30 and involves someone writing your name on a paper cup in felt tip, there's a lot to be said for a stimulant that can be prepared in five seconds for about 2p. A discreet kettle and a jar of Gold Blend is the choice of the deadline-surfer with their priorities in check.

Mango frappuccino

If you are eight-years-old, fine. If you are any older, please examine your life priorities.

Double espresso

The choice of the intellectual sophisticate.

Single-estate drip-filtered

Coffee taken to the heights of purity ... offset by the fact that it cost ￡3.95, takes years and will come served with east London attitude.

Cold press with butter

This is actually a thing. Future historians will draw terrible conclusions from this fact.

Decaf

You don't get out much do you?

Short cappuccino

Starbucks promises that you can still get a cappuccino if you really want one. You just have to go off menu. The same principle applies if you want to order a small coffee. The listed sizes are "grande" (big), "medio" (too big) and "venti" (way too big). Clever people order "short". It costs less and it's perfectly sufficient.

Meanwhile, as the fashionable bits of every major British city are overrun by identikit indie coffee joints staffed by Australian hipsters, Starbucks itself starts to feel like a sane, pleasant, even faintly subversive option. The "short cappuccino" thus paradoxically becomes the most sophisticated thing you can possibly order. And so the cycle begins again.

(China Daily 06/20/2015 page10)