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With holiday season in full swing, Starbucks baristas are being inundated with a word salad of festive drink orders. And just as their lengthy names imply — what the heck is a sugar cookie almond milk latte? — they're fairly difficult to make, especially when you have to memorize more than a dozen recipes. Here are the most difficult holiday drinks, according to Starbucks employees.
The mocha cookie crumble topped the list of difficult-to-make holiday drinks, with multiple baristas complaining of its complexity. One employee said that they "cringe" every time they hear someone order it, while another barista admitted that they "despise" the holiday frappuccino with "every fiber" of their being.
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With up to six pumps of flavoring, preparing the toasted white mocha is a workout, making it another difficult drink, according to Starbucks employees on Reddit. "My forearms are literally rock hard by the end of my shift," one barista shared.
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If five pumps sounds like a lot, then you'll be blown away by Starbucks' venti iced peppermint mocha, which gets a whopping 12 pumps of syrup. Not only is it a pain to make, it also contains 70 grams of sugar. That's 17 teaspoons of sweet, sweet sucrose, or the equivalent of two cans of Coke.
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If you had to open (and shake) six bottles of almond milk every shift, you'd probably hate the sugar cookie almond milk latte, too. Beyond having to shake the bottles of almond milk — another workout — the cartons also don't close properly. It isn't worth the effort, especially since one barista described its flavor as "burning plastic."
Since this tea includes so many different ingredients at different ends of the store, ordering one "messes up the flow" of work and is "very time consuming," according to multiple baristas. With multiple mentions in this thread, it's certainly one of employees' most-hated drinks.
This drink's vanilla sweat cream foam and line of cocoa topping make it particularly frustrating for employees, baristas say. "The worst thing about the holiday drink is that they all get a different sprinkle on top, so if you grab the wrong one and top a drink with it you need to dump the drink and start over," one worker wrote.
While they're fun to say, full of tempting ingredients, and a customer favorite, baristas generally hate making most frappuccinos because of the added steps, which pulls workers away from the espresso bar. "I dread when a frappuccino is being ordered," a worker wrote, adding that they are the "literal worst."