Mel Buttle: What your coffee and tea say about you

Mug size, quarter strength, extra hot? You’re a cappuccino drinker. Have a beach house and make your own leather shoes? You drink macchiatos. Mel Buttle rips into your beverage of choice.

This week, it’s all about your liquid assets, here’s my deep dive into what your morning beverage says about you:

Green tea is your halfway house on the way to coffee sobriety. One day you went into T2, spent $17 on green tea, and now you’re hooked on that smug feeling of being the unique green tea drinker on office coffee runs. Enjoy your antioxidants while you can, you’ll be back on coffee in two months.

Flat white, you became a flat white drinker on your first trip to Melbourne in your 20s, when you said to a barista, “one white coffee please”, and they handed you a flat white.

What’s your coffee order? Comment below.

Cappuccino, you’re a woman over the age of 55. It’s the drink to sip with your friends called Colleen, Dot and Lyn at a shopping centre cafe in your white three quarter length pants and gold sandals. If you hear someone order a, “mug size, quarter strength, extra hot, skinny” I guarantee the next word will be cappuccino.

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Macchiato, you’re very important at work, this is a coffee for people in managerial roles who don’t have time to be sipping away on milk all morning. Perhaps you’ve moved up from Sydney to run the Brisbane office and this is your lifeline to home. Macchiato drinkers have a beach house and a weird hobby like making their own leather shoes.

Chai tea, you order it so you can talk about your trip to India, and you love too let us plebs know how when we call it chai tea, we’re saying “tea tea” as chai means tea in Hindi. These guys flirt with the idea of going vegan every few months.

English Breakfast tea, you have no interest in any other form of hot drink, it’s tea or bust. You have a kettle that goes on the stove too, so getting a cup of tea at your place is a long wait, by comparison for us electric kettle owners. These people have a connection somehow to the UK and really don’t see what all the kerfuffle around coffee is for.

Long black or milk in your coffee?

Long black, you’re into open water swimming, and rock climbing. You love to say, ‘you can judge a cafe by its long black’. The other end of the spectrum is shift workers on a deadline, maybe you work in TV editing where they have to turn around three episodes of The Block overnight. It’s also the coffee for people who had a bad experience with tuck shop warm milk and haven’t consumed the stuff since.

Black tea drinkers, eventually all Nanna’s swap over just black tea. It’s also the beloved drink of grey nomads. I suppose it’s just easier to not fuss about with milk when you’re on the road to the Gulf in a camper van.

Peppermint tea, performers love a peppy tea before they go on stage, if someone drinks peppermint tea, ask them when their next gig is, they’ll have one don’t you worry.

Shot of caramel in a coffee, you’re a blokes bloke, who’s doesn’t care about the rich cherry and smoked chocolate aromas of the single origin beans from Guatemala. This is the coffee of choice for army guys and builders. The other main consumer of flavoured coffee is mum’s who’ve got three kids under 8 and are just too busy too care what the barista thinks of their large triple shot flat white with a shot of caramel.

Coffee caramel smoothie.

Ristretto, just move back to Melbourne already, take your grey and black clothes with you, yes it is humid here, well spotted.

Cold brew, wire-framed glasses, socks with Birkenstock sandals, an ironic 90s cap, and a Patagonia something on you. You’re the frontline of what’s hip. You work in graphic design and you’re the one who translates memes for the rest of the office.