Silly story ! Waiter can you now get me the REAL CAPPUCCINO please?

I started out this blog with a decision that I would post alternating silly stories with serious blog topics. But that really didn't happen as often as I would have liked.

Either ways , I am back with yet another silly life story . To read my other blog entries under the SILLY STORIES category, just scroll down the page and browse my archives section.

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One sunny afternoon, I went along with someone else to this average looking cafe that was attached to a large bakery. I for the fancy of it all had decided that afternoon to dress in the most traditional attire possible . Again, this cafe that i visited was no High end cafe with fancy pastries and plated desserts or some such. This was neither that low end cafe where the only coffee they sell is Kaapi (coz that is all they know-They might even ask, isn't all coffee just kaapi?Well, No, It is not.). This was a mid level cafe with a menu printed in english with various coffee items listed by name or variety with a different price beside each name . The waiter that brought me the menu was dressed in the franchisee uniform too. So yeah, Not a low-end-generic-indian-eatery at all.

The menu had the following on the list ,

Lattee --%%%Rs

Cappuccino-^^^ Rs

Frappe_***Rs

Cold Coffee-&^^ Rs

Hot Tea-^&^Rs

Filter Coffee-&^*Rs

Sandwiches-&*&Rs and so on and so forth.

I ordered ,"Can you get me a cappuccino and a Latte Please! thanks ! "( please note that I ordered them because they had them on their menu.If there were none I would have most likely ordered what they had on their menu)

After a while the waiter came back with two cups of this plain-looking, over-burned coffee.Both the cups looked exactly the same. Looked like they mixed some very hot scalding milk with sugar in a pan on a stovetop and added some instant coffee powder to it and then overheated it some more till a skin formed on top. This is indicative of very bad coffee.No fresh coffee aroma whatsoever due to all that prolonged heating.

Coffee should never be heated on a stovetop at all. Even traditional filter coffee is never heated on a stove top. Only the milk is heated on stove top and then added to the precolator drip in a tumbler. But here, this coffee was truly representative of this aroma-less instant coffee with too much sugar that is served on trains in India. Well I don't mind an over sugared over burned coffee had it been what i had ordered. But I had ordered latte and cappuccino from their own menu.

I had ordered a cappuccino for myself and a latte for my other guest. Yet, both cups looked exactly alike. How can both lattee and cappuccino look like twins this way?

Now listen, here comes the fun part .

I call the waiter and ask him ," I hope you remembered to order a cappuccino and a latte for me ."

The waiter looks at me and gives a more scrutinizing look at my traditional attire and probably does his silly little mental math and probably thinks to himself about how much of bluffing he can get away with me.

He probably thought "Anyone who wears traditional attire will not really know one coffee from another . let me pull a fast one on this country bumpkin"

The waiter then proceeds to tell me ,"Yes, this is latte (while pointing to one cup) and this is cappuccino(while pointing to the other cup which looked like the exact same coffee in the other cup) .I got your order right "

Now I was starting to get a tad bit irritated , " Oh , but don't you think that both the cups look the same . I mean even if one of them is the right order, truly, you ordered two cups of the same variety."

Now the waiter has this sheepish evil grin on his face as if he is dealing with truly ignorant country bumpkins and says, " Oh no, that is how both of them look. They are actually both same. Latte and cappuccino are both coffee. Drink, drink"

Finally, it snapped and i said, " well, Both latte and cappuccino are not the same.They are different types of coffee. A latte is a more milky version of lightly flavored coffee. A cappuccino is a watery version of a strong frothy coffee. The percentages of coffee in each are different.The percentages of milk in each are different.The way you make each of them is different. So, well, neither of these cups is either a latte or a cappucino. I ordered for a cappuccino and so you better go there, use your coffee making machine, froth up your milk and gently pour it over your coffee decoction and then get me my cappuccino. I am gonna wait here for my order.You can take these cups of instant coffee back .Thanks"

For a moment, he was shocked that I said that and then he meekly picked up both the cups and went over to this other guy near the coffee machine. The funny part is, they had a coffee machine right there on the counter that they were not using.Both of them kept staring at me and then discussing stuff. I also noticed that to all customers that were coming in they were serving that same scalded coffee and serving them up because they thought that taking the trouble to use the coffee machine is quite unnecessary since most customers won't know the difference anyways. Probably they don't even . Who knows !

Finally, my frothy cappuccino arrived. It didn't taste any better . But hey, Atleast it had some froth for the sake of the name.