Two weeks ago, we asked for your real-life stories of customers requesting espresso drinks be made with breast milk. It all started with a story about a customer trying to save money on their iced lattes by bringing in their own oat milk. That spiraled out of control pretty quickly and turned into folks sharing stories of customer making breast milk-related drink requests. And so we thought, sure why not, let’s hear these stories and see if we can figure out what’s going on here.
The number of responses we got was frankly disturbing. While not enough to rise to the level of everyday occurrence, it appears that a lot of folks are comfortable making such a request. And it happens all over the country. We received responses from across the United States, including multiple instances from Seattle and Santa Cruz, which is kinda weird (but also not shocking).
We’ve rounded up some of the responses below to better explain who and why for the breast milk latte. (Spoiler alert: It’s Creepy Dad and Hippy Mom.)
Case in point: this person with run-ins with both breast milk archetypes.
I have had two instances with people asking me to steam breast milk in my 14 years in coffee. One was in my early barista days at Starbucks, the other was when I was working at a specialty shop. The first request came from a male and was assuredly, absolutely, wanting us to indulge in his kink. The second, at the specialty shop, was from a woman with an infant that I assumed was her child. She gave off very strong hippy/alternative medicine vibes. I don’t think this request stemmed from anything involving kink, but who knows.
I declined both requests stating health code. Neither requestor pushed further. If I remember correctly the second requestor order an iced espresso and then poured the breast milk over it to make a small iced latte.
Then there are these two instances in Santa Cruz.
I worked at a specialty coffee chain in college, at a location connected to that company’s offices, so I regularly made drinks for senior staff members throughout the day. A senior administrative staff person came downstairs with a jar of his wife’s breast milk and asked me to make a macchiato with it. My male manager insisted I comply, so I did. He drank the whole thing in front of us and it felt beyond awful and gross. The staff watching were all men save for me and thought it was hilarious. I had to decontaminate that steam wand after. The breast milk drinker now owns a different chain of cafes in the same town, and I hope he hasn’t made any other baristas do that again.
Witnessed this as a customer, not the barista, back in 2018 at a cafe in Santa Cruz, CA. While I waited in line I noticed that the lady in front of me was holding a small jar filled with something. As she steps up to the counter to place her order, she places the jar on the counter and asks the barista to make her latte with her fresh breast milk. There was some discussion behind the bar, as if it might actually be an option. Thankfully the shop refused.
Here’s a story from Seattle, where the desire to consume breast milk lattes collided with the desire to be served fancy deconstructed espresso drinks.
Can 100% confirm this happened to me numerous times as a barista in Seattle who famously offered the deconstructed espresso + milk. She asked me if I would make a special version of this drink with her breast milk. The same woman came in over the course of a year and asked if I would steam her breast milk on the Slayer steam wand. This went on for so long that our owner had to make a rule that no outside milk would be steamed.
Crazy world.
But none of them compare to the sheer cringe factor of this response out of Lowell, MA.
I was working as a barista and one of my coworkers was pregnant. A man walked up when she was on the bar and ordered a latte. When we asked him what kind of milk he wanted he said “do you have mother’s milk?”
I wish I could say I told him to GTFO, but it did become an often-repeated phrase among the staff.
The moral of the story here is that some of y’all are way too comfortable in public and should really consider the requests you make of service industry workers. And I’m not here to cast aspersions on anyone for their tastes—except for mother’s milk guy, he can have all the aspersions—but it’s maybe a good idea to give a second thought to asking a food and drink provider to use a foodstuff of unknown origin that you brought in from home. Especially if it comes from the human body.
Please stop doing this.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
