2nd installment

By now, you should be pretty proficient at ordering any size of black coffee or coffee with cream and sugar. What if you want more than a black coffee or just cream and sugar?

In Canada, we have special terms for getting more than one cream and sugar in your coffee. Let’s start with “double double”.

Any Canadian who’s worth his or her coffee knows what a “double double” is. To those of you who are new to Canada or not from Canada or haven’t been through the Canadian coffee experience, a double double is a coffee with two shots of creams and two spoons of sugar in it. For clarity, some drive through denizens say “double cream, double sugar”. Also acceptable are: “two-by-two”, and of course, the obvious “two cream and two sugar”.

A slight variation on the double double is the “double single” (two creams, one sugar) and the “single double” (one cream, two sugar).

In the spirit of following trends, a “triple triple” will get you a coffee with three creams and three sugars; saying “three-by-three” will get you the same effect, as will simply saying the obvious “three cream, three sugar” or “triple cream, triple sugar”.

Now, there are more permutations: “triple-single”, “triple-double”, “single-triple”, and “double-triple”. You just need to make sure you say these very clearly and be sure of what you’re saying, because you could easily confuse the order taker, the coffee assembler, and yourself.

As a warning, Canadians don’t like using very long words, so nobody orders a “quadruple-quadruple”. Don’t even try it if you don’t want to get laughed at or have the order taker say “what? could you repeat your order please” or some such embarrassing question. Simply ask for a “four-by-four” or a “four cream, four sugar”.

For other combinations, stick with what is clear and simple: five-by-five, five cream, two sugar; two cream, six sugar; triple cream, four sugar; and so on. I’m sure you get the idea.

more to come….