Coffee Confusion

What could be easier than ordering a coffee at McDonalds?

“I’d like a large coffee please,” I say to the woman behind the counter.

“Certainly sir. A toll whait?”

Now, ‘tall white’ is apparently a NZ phenomenon, the local flavour you might say. Not even sure what it is… I just know that when I go for a coffee, I want coffee. Curiousity and cross-cultural experience are for after coffee. A local warned me, though, that this is the land of coffee snobbery. Having been to Italy, I thought  I was prepared to navigate it.

‘No thanks, just a black coffee please.  A brewed black coffee. Large.”

“Brood?” It seems to stump the woman, who I had assumed may have gone to some sort of coffee-making training that involves brewing.

“Yes,” I reply. “Just a regular large coffee.”

“Toll than?”

“Sure,” I say. Eventually one gives in to company terms- though it took me about three years to pass the word ‘vente’ from my lips at Starbucks.

“One shat or two?” She asks, satisfied with the size issue being settled.

Not pictured: $4.50 in my pocket

“No, just a large brewed,” I say, wanting to avoid the cost of an Americano.

She looks at me, hand on the hissing-hot water thingy, perplexed. We seemed to have reached an impasse.

“Just a regular black coffee,” I repeat.

Flummoxed, she just starts making a coffee of some sort.

“Do you want some hot wotta on the side?” she asks.

Now it’s my turn to be confused. I would have assumed hot water was part of the recipe. “No, just fill it to the top with coffee please.”

She stops the process. “Some people want hot wotta to top it up if it’s too strong,” she explains, as if to a child… or a strange person with an odd accent, likely American.

“No, just make the coffee, and fill it to the top. Sure, two shots,” I add, giving up to her needs, hoping for a speedy end to the confusion

“Certainly,” she says, seemingly satisfied. “Room for milk?”

“No, just black,” I say again. “And fill it to the top.” No sense leaving room for error.

“Certainly.” She hands me what would be the smallest cup available at a North American coffee shop. “One toll bleck.”

 I take it. From the heat inside, the coffee is about three fingers deep in the cup. At least an inch of space remains to the lip of the cup.

“Would you like sugah with that?” She asks.

I shake my head no, give her the $3.50NZ, and leave the store with my five minutes’ worth of coffee drinking.

 Maybe next time, it’ll be easier ordering a toll whait.