Why Your Starbucks Drink Tastes Different Every Time You Order It

One of the biggest selling points for fast food franchises is that they are highly standardized. When you go to a Burger King to get a Whopper, chances are it won't be appreciably better or worse than any other Whopper you've eaten in your life (unless you order a better Whopper with these four tips). In other words, you know what you're going to get. But if that's the case, how come a Starbucks Frappuccino (or any of the coffee chain's other caffeinated concoctions) can taste noticeably different depending on the day, or even the time of day? Well, there are a few different reasons, chief among them being the varying quality of Starbucks baristas.

One Starbucks employee who trains baristas weighed in on the matter on Reddit. "If trainers stick too closely to the modules, newbies learn very standard forms of drinks and a super limited amount at that," they said. They may be able to make the drinks on the latest Starbucks summer menu, but if you ask for anything complicated they may very well flounder. On top of that, there was a change in policy regarding barista training that may explain some disparities. That same Reddit post continued, saying, "Starbucks also has switched from actual module training for promos/new drinks to 'read the recipes and take a quiz' style training, which is supposed to be followed up with time to make all the new drinks. Do you get to? Probably no. You're lucky if you get the time to make one before launch." That's a point worth remembering: If a barista makes a mistake, they may not be incompetent, but rather ill-prepared.

It's often said that a bad workman blames his tools. However, in the case of Starbucks, an odd-tasting drink may indeed be the work of faulty equipment. For example, if you ask for a certain number of pumps of chai in your drink, the actual amount of chai that ends up in your drink may depend on how well the pump was reassembled after its last cleaning. If there was a mistake during reassembly, the pressure may be off, resulting in an uneven amount of chai.

Meanwhile, an off taste may have something to do with the size of the drink order. If you order a smaller sized drink, like a short or a tall, your drink will have one shot of espresso if you ask for it; if you order a grande or a venti, however, it comes with two shots of that glorious bean juice (which always tastes way better at coffee shops than at home). Anyone who's tasted espresso will tell you that a drink made with two shots will taste stronger than a drink made with just one, hence the same exact order may be mild and lovely as a tall, but nose-crinklingly bitter as a grande.