When I was about 12, I spent a day working a concession stand at my school’s homecoming. At the end of my shift, I decided to get myself a cup of the coffee that had been so popular throughout the day. But when I was asked what I wanted, I realized I had no idea. While I couldn’t articulate it at the time, what I wanted was a vehicle for some flavored syrup. Nearly two decades and several thousand cups of coffee later, I am realizing that I still don’t actually know what to order. This was highlighted for me at a recent trip to a new coffee shop when, after I tried to order, the barista gave me a look of confusion and tried to reason with me as to why my order was, apparently, physically impossible. It was as if I had just ordered a cappuccino in an mp3 format. Flustered, I allowed her to realign my order with reality. And then I started to wonder how I lacked the understanding of caffeinated drinks that came so effortlessly to everyone around me.

Our planet’s surface is 71% water and, I would guess, roughly another 15% Starbucks and Starbucks knock-offs. In such a world, knowing what to order in a coffee shop should be as natural as breathing or navigating to the home screen on an iPhone. Even if we have never been to a particular cafe, most of us have at least one or two go-to drinks that roll off the tongue when the barista asks what we want. And we can order without ever looking at the menu.

In fact, coffee shops seem to go out of their way to try to break this habit and stand out from the other three coffee shops on the block. They come up with creative ways to display their menus, invent gimmicky names for cut-and-paste drinks, and try radical flavor combinations (“how would you like the calamari on that latte, sir?”). And, weirdly, sometimes it works pretty well. Something that does not work well, in my opinion, is when a cafe has unique names for their sizes. I’m a traditionalist: anything beyond “small, medium, and large” is pretentious. I’m one of those people who are still mad at Starbucks for “tall, grande, and venti,” though I begrudgingly use the system. Against my will, I once went to a tea shop whose sizes were named after types of kisses, something like “peck, smooch, and French.” I have not been back.

But in spite of these efforts to stand out, coffee shops have to have the standards. Somewhere on the menu will always be some form of latte, mocha, macchiato, cappuccino, and Americano. And, honestly, I have very little idea what these are or how they are different. On the particular day in question, I really just wanted black coffee. Weirdly, though, while it is implied that you can get this at a coffee shop, this most basic form of coffee often does not appear on the menu. Confused and afraid of wading into the world of selecting what kind of bean I wanted, I just knew that I wasn’t looking for anything too sweet, milky, or foamy. Having some sense that it was not any of these (but having very little idea what it actually was), I decided to take a gamble and order a large Americano.

I didn’t really know what to expect. I figured it would be dark, bitter, and energizing. Beyond that, I didn’t know and didn’t really care. I’m not sure I would have batted an eye if the barista had handed over a cup of old coffee grounds. But this barista wanted to get it right. And some of you have already spotted the problem. You see, apparently an Americano is a shot of espresso diluted with hot water. As such, it is precisely proportioned, and, at least at this coffee shop, could only be served in one size. I didn’t care: I was just looking for the large version of whatever it was, whether that was a shot glass or a bucket. The barista sheepishly suggested a latte since, apparently, that could be more accurately scaled to the large cup. Partly embarrassed and partly frustrated, I agreed and moved on . . . only apparently not because I am still thinking about it.

The simple fact is that I can make coffee at home. I may not know the correct proportions for an Americano or what exactly is so drippy about “drip coffee.” But I do own a French press. So if all I need is caffeine, I can do that at home. If I am in a drive-through, I actually want something that tastes good because I am probably either going home to drink it in comfort or trying to make a long road trip less miserable. But if I am in the coffee shop, really I am paying for the atmosphere with a side of caffeine. And I don’t care much about what form that caffeine takes.

You may think that such a sentiment flies in the face of our society. To not know the differences between mochas and macchiatos and the other pillars of the Starbucks era is to have a massive gap in one’s basic knowledge. It is the coffee equivalent of being a flat-earther. The thing is, I’m guessing a surprising percentage of the population shares my perspectives. We walk into a coffee shop and just want something zingy but don’t know the Italian word for it (“un drink come una Vespa [insert attempt to imitate a two-stroke engine]”). We spit out an order that has worked in the past, not really knowing what it is and hoping that the barista can make sense of it. And, having already forgotten what we ordered, we happily sip the results. We might be ignorant, but at least we are caffeinated.