Baristas familiar with their customers' tastes often serve special drinks not found on any menu. Photo: IC

 

If you find yourself bored with the options offered on the menu at your local coffee shop, perhaps it is time to ask the barista for something "special."

The news website 21cn.com recently reported that Starbucks has a secret menu that contains around 50 different kinds of coffees that only the die-hard customers know about.

According to the article, customized drinks, such as the "Grasshopper Frappuccino," a combination of Mocha Frappuccino with javachips and peppermint syrup, or the "Captain Crunch Frappuccino," a mixture of cream, strawberry juice and hazelnut syrup with ice, are not advertised on any menu and are known only by word of mouth.

Starbucks is not alone in having secret menus for its customers. According to HackTheMenu.com, a website dedicated to finding the secret menus of popular fast food restaurants, Mcdonald's, KFC, and many other global chains also have unadvertised meals and drinks for sale. In the coffee industry, secret menus are common practice.

Although the existence of the mythical items are starting to become better known among customers, Starbucks is adamant they don't have an authorized secret menu at company level.

"Some customers have specific tastes. They have special requirements when ordering a coffee, such as adding two more shots of espresso and syrup, thus forming their own secret menu," said Gou Jianchao, one of the coffee ambassadors of Starbucks China, who are a group of experts dedicated to promoting the coffee culture in this country.

As Starbucks is willing to customize drinks to suit different tastes, customers who regularly visit the same coffee shop become known to the staff, and so do their precise drinks. Once customers start sharing recipes with each other, a secret menu will then emerge in that shop, explained Gou.

"A secret menu is built from a rapport formed between a coffee shop and a customer over a sustained period," said Gou.

Qiao Qi, a barista trainer from the Beijing Coffee Association, said that secret menus aren't exclusive to just Starbucks or chains in Western countries, but can be found in most of the coffee shops throughout the coffee industry.

"Coffee shops accommodate a large number of different customers each day. They need to keep the menu limited to some basic drinks such as Mocha and Latte, so as not to confuse customers who are unfamiliar with coffee," explained Qiao.

The basic menus advertised only reflect a small part of the endless possibilities of coffee drink variations, according to Qiao.

"Coffee leaves a lot of room for creativity for those who know the drink. They can create different flavors by adding various ingredients to the basic drinks on the menu, thus forming their own secret menu," said Qiao.

Secret menus, according to Qiao, are more prevalent in smaller coffee shops, because the owners are usually the barista who spends time attending to customer's needs and unique preferences.

Brera Cafe & Gallery, a coffee shop in Chaoyang district owned by 30-year-old Chen Mengmeng, is one such shop that has a secret menu to cater to the "bizarre" requests of its regular customers.

The most impressive secret recipe at Chen's shop was created by an 18-year-old boy who always asks for an addition of Tabasco sauce in his Americano.

"He says the flavor is so refreshing that he feels a sense of enlightenment by drinking it," said Chen.

In a country that has just started embracing the coffee culture, Gou said China's coffee fans have yet to form their own secret menus.

"The basic drinks in our menu have been tested over time to determine what best suits most customers. For me, I still recommend our standard menu of drinks," said Gou.