How to Order Coffee Like a Local

New interactive tool helps travellers order coffee across the Globe

Coffee plays such a vital role in our lives – it brings people together to socialise, has been linked with productivity at work and can be a comfort when travelling to unknown places.

As a result, Freshground has created a new interactive tool to help you get your caffeine fix abroad! The tool reveals how to order coffee in local languages from across the globe, along with helpful tips about each destination’s cafe culture and history. How clever!

The ‘International Language of Coffee’ tool was created after it was revealed that almost half of Britons are embarrassed by not being able to speak the local language when holidaying abroad. Shockingly, over half also admitted to resorting to pointing at menus to avoid mispronouncing non-English words when ordering in a restaurant. The new tool translates phrases used to ask for coffee around the globe, plays audio to help with your pronunciation and provides phonetic spellings to make ordering as easy as possible.

“This new tool will help you not only order like a local, but includes tips about each country’s cafe culture. Great for if you’re traveling for either leisure or business,” said Dan Lyon MD of FreshGround.

Using the tool, Brits can order coffee abroad with confidence, discover the perfect local accompaniments for their beverage, and learn about local coffee culture.

If you fancy indulging in something special and a little unusual, take a trip to India where you’ll find Monkey Parchment coffee. Costing roughly $300 a pound, the unusual beverage is brewed from beans that have been chewed up and spat out by Rhesus monkeys in the jungles of India.

Holidaying a little closer to home? Order like a local in France and ask for a café crème. The drink is very similar to a cappuccino – an espresso topped with foam milk in a small bowl.

The tool also shares a number of interesting, strange and surprising coffee facts. For example, did you know that legend suggests that coffee was discovered by goats in Ethiopia who were found jumping around after coming across shrubs of coffee cherries? 

In Iceland, superstition suggest that accidentally serving guests coffee in an unmatched cup and saucer (locally known as þrælapar in Icelandic) means the guest will have an affair or remarry. And in Turkey, coffee is so essential to Turkish culture that UNESCO confirmed it as an “intangible cultural heritage of Turkey”?

Coffee is big business and continues to grow. World coffee exports reached 9.94 million bags in November 2016, up from 8.74 million the previous year.

Despite being known as a nation of tea drinkers, Britons drink approximately 55 million cups of coffee per day. On the high street, café culture has also continued to boom, 80% of people who visit coffee shops do so at least once a week, whilst 16% of us visit on a daily basis.

Coffee is also playing a major role in workplaces across the world. In Finland coffee is so integral to the working day that by law, the Finnish are entitled to a ‘coffee break’ at work twice daily for 10 minutes. Across the pond in the USA, 77 percent of employees have access to a workplace coffee area.

Diana Simpson

Diana is a passionate journalist and a curious soul who is on the quest of finding what she loves the most; coffee, dogs, books or traveling? Born and bred in London, writing is her healing power.