Few weeks ago, my friend and I decided to meet at Starbucks but I was a bit early so decided to order and wait for him. I'm not a coffee person but no big deal for me if we're meeting in a coffee shop cause you know, Starbucks (like other shops) have non-coffee drinks. But i felt awkward when I asked the cashier for a hot choco - some people in that shop looked at me. No over reactions, but i feel like they were surprised with what i ordered.

I don't think much of them

Glad to hear you still think of us a little

Ordering a non-coffee drink at a Starbucks is not at all uncommon. Baristas make them all the time and I seriously doubt anybody around you gave it a second thought.

As a huge coffee person myself, I think everyone should just drink what they want.

While I am into my coffee, Starbucks isn’t the place for it — I’d rather make it at home. I drink way more iced tea than coffee. Get what you like!

Starbucks is the place for non-coffee people ;p

You're overthinking it. Lots of people get hot chocolate. You can also get hot chocolate with a shot of peppermint. They're on the menu at Christmastime. Tea people confused me until I found a good tea shop.

They probably weren't expecting you to abbreviate chocolate.

What kind of sociopath doesn’t drink coffee? How do you operate? Just on hate? Insane. Don’t even get me started on people who desecrate the coffee with animal lactate, diabetes, and…. Irish cream.

I don't care. Drink what you want. Hot chocolate is good.

Never was a tea person, got to Great Britain for 2 weeks… understood why people drink tea instantly

I remember meeting an American who visited my country. Lovely person, but they would make emphatic statements such as “I’m an Apple user”. The product and brand choice was part of their identity, and served their expansion of sense of self.

We found that so strange here in the early 2000s. We don’t talk to each other about products or brands except maybe in passing if it’s relevant.

A friend who is surprised by primitive things like choices of food and drink is not a mature person. (Not saying they’re not good people, just that they have a lot of personal growth ahead of them).

What is weird is that neither of you said sorry, I don’t support the growth of a corporation that treats human life like shit : https://iere.org/why-is-starbucks-being-boycotted/

Genuinely, I'm impressed and a little jealous. I certainly have a caffeine addiction, at least in the physical sense. I enjoy the ritual of making and drinking coffee and truly enjoy the flavors. However, after about 14 years of daily consumption, my body needs at least 3-4 cups of coffee to feel like a somewhat normal, functioning human. It's probably not healthy. So I'm impressed when people function without it.

Lol nothing it's not my business

I don't. I'm too busy with my own life to care about what others drink.

I'd probably stop coffee myself (mostly because laziness and optimizing my day) if it was not the entire culture around having a coffee break.

I don't think about it at all.

I'm always a bit surprised by how everything has to be tagged, classified and segregated.

I wouldn't care one bit, nor do I know anyone who does.

The only time I notice someone's order is if it's ridiculously elaborate. Like I doubt you're actually interested in drinking this but abusing a worker for content or entertainment. Otherwise yeah I not only don't care I probably won't even notice.

Moreover if I'm in "coffee person" mode I have a little list of cafés I go to. To me judging your order at Starbucks would be like judging your order at McDonald's. None of this stuff is good so I can't really be elitist that you ordered fish instead of a burger, we're just here for convenience.

Lucky. I've been wanting to quit for a while now, but the headache is unbearable. Some improvement when i replace my lunch coffee with green tea, but i still need some of them caffeine.

My husband had the same, brutal headaches if he tried to quit. What he did was slowly over the course of a few weeks replace some of the beans for the morning pot with decaf, ramping it up until it was all decaf eventually. He’d have green tea the rest of the day. He’s a tea drinker now, but we’ll have a half decaf latte every now and then as a sunday treat if we’re out. It’s really hard to replace coffee with tea as the caffeine types are different.

They're fine. People are allowed to like things and have different preferences. Otherwise every coffee shop menu would just be one drink.

non-coffee person here. i don't like how it tastes. and i also don't really get why people seem to like caffeine so much. I never really noticed a difference when I drink it

Coffee person here I make no judgments about other people’s drink Preferences.

Tbh I’d probably order a non-coffee drink if I was ever forced into a Starbucks.

Yeah I doubt everyone looked. Starbucks hasn't been coffee only for a long long long time. Most of their drinks have very little coffee in them. I saw somewhere that gen z now views coffee as more of a flavor than a standalone drink, at least a very good sized chunk of it, using things like instant coffee to brew a small amount to add whatever else they are making. I doubt anyone at all cared.

Anybody who creates an opinion about a person based only on their beverage preference is an idiot whose opinion should be ignored.

That's a requirement for all Apple users.

It's a preference, sometimes for health reasons. Why would I be mad that they don't like coffee? Or tea? As long as I have something in my cupboard for them to drink when they visit, I'm good.

I have so many pregnant coworkers this summer; hot chocolate and caffeine-free tea are now standard items in my office. Quite a few non-pregnant coworkers are taking them too, so happy to be able to meet more preferences. I don't care one whit about people who don't drink coffee for whatever reason.

Starbucks wouldn't have hot chocolate on their menu if it didn't get ordered. You're overthinking it. Anyone who would judge you for it is a weirdo.

I don't care.

I have a phone and computer of theirs. But I rarely mention it because I don’t want to promote them. I now see them a such a heinous entity that I’ll be doing my best not to buy again.

It's not the hot chocolate, it's probably you.

Haha seriously this. There weren't any coffee people in there to judge.

I literally had a work meeting with someone I'd never met, they asked to meet at Starbucks. Then when I arrived he got up and said "where should we go for coffee?"

Some non-coffee people get so smug about not drinking coffee. We wish they'd put something in their mouths other than their opinions about coffee. But normal non-coffee people? I honestly wouldn't even notice what you ordered.

I read it a few times wondering why the last o was in the abbreviation, then decided I have no idea how to properly abbreviate the term.

I never got into it, my dad would drink a pot of coffee before work, my mother had tea every morning so caffeine was all around me but I think I wound up with more of a sugar addiction at that age. By the time I found myself in a job that had free coffee in the break room I was maybe 26-27. I remember the VP walking me over there my first day and I got a coffee to fit in, the taste indont mind but I would feel jittery and it would make me want to bounce my leg or fidget like crazy, so for like 6 months I just put water in a coffee cup with a lid and carried it to my desk, then bought thermos i brought in so no one would ever know about the contents. I'm sure no one would actually care what I was drinking... But social norms sometimes seem important.

What kind of coffee do you drink?

But i felt awkward when I asked the cashier for a hot choco

Maybe people think hot cocoa is a drink for kids

But now that you mention it, I have a lot of extra coffeemate that I got for my kids coffee and no way to use it - I wonder if I can use it in hot cocoa.

Don’t care. Order what you want. (Wait til you have dental work and have to order something at a child’s temperature 👍)

Also, doesn’t bux have menu items called “cremes”? They’re the same fancy drinks, just without the espresso.

I think they also have hot apple cider with whipped cream. Fabulous.

In Melbourne, where coffee is our way of life and you can't throw a stone in the CBD without hitting a barista, it's completely normal to order a chai latte or hot choccy at a cafe. You're probably overthinking people's reactions.

Me too, not a fan of burnt coffee

I suspect that they looked at you because your were obviously nervous.

No one cares, coming from a non coffee person as well. My wife is a teacher and gets a lot of Starbucks gift cards, neither of us drink coffee. So we just use it for road trips and hot chocolate.

How do you even poop without coffee? /s

A hot chocolate at a cafe is an unremarkably normal thing to order. It's on the menu at almost every cafe. A half coffee, half hot chocolate is a common order.

I doubt anyone was looking at you because you ordered a hot chocolate.

Sometimes you just need to reverse the situation in your head, put yourself in their shoes, and think about how you would react.

So you're working a shift at Starbucks, hundreds of customers come in a day and order all kinds of drinks. Maybe it's mostly coffee, but they're pretty popular for their non coffee drinks too.

A singular person comes in, maybe mid shift, and orders a hot chocolate. Do you honestly even give it a second thought?

I like coffee, but my Starbucks order is generally a big big cup of unsweetened iced green tea. Never thought about it and wouldn't think about it.

I can’t imagine anyone at a starbucks high roading you about a hot chocolate order. Starbucks is the McDonald’s of coffee.

Starbucks’ drip coffee is consistent and convenient. We use that place as a bathroom and for black drip coffee or cold brew while out/traveling if there are no better options.

Order what you like and ignore the side glances.

You need to care less about what strangers think of your beverage habits and more about the politics of your country

I don't think anything about them.

I kind of associate hot chocolate with kids and winter, so maybe that's where the reaction came from? That said, I would and have quite happily drunk hot chocolate in public as an adult, regardless of season.

If you're really worried that someone will look down on you and you don't like coffee, maybe order a tea or a refresher. Chai lattes and matcha lattes also don't have coffee. Or just get food and a water.

As for your title question, It has literally never occurred to me to think anything about someone not drinking coffee or expressing a dislike for coffee.

I'm a hopeless coffee snob. I hate Starbucks, so I try to avoid it, but people like it and sometimes you have to meet someone there.

I had the almost exact same experience the last time I had to meet someone there and got one of their slushies and it was good. Next time I might just grab a coke.

Starbucks makes Starbucks drinks and people go there because they like Starbucks drinks. Starbucks is basically just marketing. People may have looked because you didn't have a "regular order". This is marketing bullshit. You shouldn't feel bad, but that is how marketing works.

I've started to unhelpfully vent a bit. There's nothing wrong with not liking coffee and not liking Starbucks coffee is the correct opinion. Hot chocolate is delicious.