Espresso Stand
by Corin Anderson, Melinda T. Owens. Special thanks to Larassa Howard at the crew of the Southcenter Barnes & Noble Starbucks for indulging our involved espresso requests.
Answer: HANGOVER REMEDY
The puzzle is presented as a photograph of the order pick-up area in a Starbucks. Shown prominently are a set of drinks, each with a label that shows a name and the drink description in shorthand.
The first insight is that these are all drinks from Starbucks in particular, not just any espresso stand.
The first solve step is to identify the drinks from their images. With knowledge of Starbucks drinks and cup sizes, players should identify these (in photo order, which is ascending drink size order) as:
- short flat white
- grande iced passion tango tea
- grande caramel cloud macchiato
- grande strawberry frappuccino
- grande cinnamon dolce latte
- venti iced matcha green tea latte
- venti caffe mocha
The drink shorthand on each label obviously doesn’t line up with the respective cups / drinks, but with a little guesswork one can match the drinks up with a shorthand from another label.
- short flat white: sh fl wh
- grande iced passion tango tea: rane ice assion ano ea
- grande caramel cloud macchiato: gr cr clou mt
- grande strawberry frappuccino: gad srwer fapcio
- grande cinnamon dolce latte: grnd cnnmn dlc ltt
- venti iced matcha green tea latte: vi id ma gn ta le
- venti caffe mocha: ei caffe mcha
The final insight is to guess that each drink’s shorthand is a different function that reduces the full drink name down to something shorter. Each drink uses a different shorthand:
- short flat white → sh fl wh: first two letters
- grande iced passion tango tea → rane ice assion ano ea: short letters (no ascenders or descenders)
- grande caramel cloud macchiato → gr cr clou mt: letters in alpha ascending order
- grande strawberry frappuccino → gad srwer fapcio: every other letter
- grande cinnamon dolce latte → grnd cnnmn dlc ltt: consonants
- venti iced matcha green tea latte → vi id ma gn ta le: first and last letters
- venti caffe mocha → ei caffe mcha: letters from the first half of the alphabet
The next step is to apply that same shorthand function to the name on the cup with that drink:
- short flat white → sh fl wh: first two letters of hadley: HA
- grande iced passion tango tea → rane ice assion ano ea: short letters of brett: RE
- grande caramel cloud macchiato → gr cr clou mt: letters in alpha ascending order of olivia: OV
- grande strawberry frappuccino → gad srwer fapcio: every other letter of ezra: ER
- grande cinnamon dolce latte → grnd cnnmn dlc ltt: consonants of angie: NG
- venti iced matcha green tea latte → vi id ma gn ta le: first and last letters of danny: DY
- venti caffe mocha → ei caffe mcha: letters from the first half of the alphabet of moses: ME
The final step is to reorder the bigrams by the chain implied by the labels:
- short flat white → sh fl wh: first two letters of hadley: HA
- grande cinnamon dolce latte → grnd cnnmn dlc ltt: consonants of angie: NG
- grande caramel cloud macchiato → gr cr clou mt: letters in alpha ascending order of olivia: OV
- grande strawberry frappuccino → gad srwer fapcio: every other letter of ezra: ER
- grande iced passion tango tea → rane ice assion ano ea: short letters of brett: RE
- venti caffe mocha → ei caffe mcha: letters from the first half of the alphabet of moses: ME
- venti iced matcha green tea latte → vi id ma gn ta le: first and last letters of danny: DY
The final answer, to the question what does the barista need, is HANGOVER REMEDY.