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Most People Know There’s More Than Three Starbucks Cup Sizes-Touch Some Grass

A current Starbucks barista talks for a long time because they read an article that was just... so wrong in every way.

If you’re judging someone by their Starbucks order, or even more concerning, the size of their drink, I genuinely think you need to go outside and touch some grass. If someone wants to drink 20 ounces of 2% milk and some half decent espresso, enough sugar to wake the dead before 7 in the morning, by all means go ahead, but you wouldn’t catch me dead drinking anything larger than a grande. Regardless, Starbucks sizes are nowhere near confusing if you just take a second to look at them. 

Sure, Starbucks operates by its own size parameters, and no you won’t find a small, medium or large on any of the menu boards at your local Starbucks. Any half-decent barista will gladly take you saying any of those three sizes instead of whatever nonsense you decide to spew instead. The sizing isn’t meant to complicate anything, it’s just meant to add to the experience.

In addition to your less than average size names, the sizes also do impact your caffeine dosage, varying between hot and cold drinks. Which honestly, is better than expecting the same amount of caffeine in both an 8oz Short and a 30oz Trenta cup…

You really don’t need a map to ‘navigate’ this menu, just simple reading comprehension or the ability to listen when you ask questions to your barista. 

Why are Starbucks sizes different?

The cup and drink sizes at Starbucks aren’t actually that much different from other popular or well-known coffee locations. McDonald’s Small (12oz), Medium (16oz) and Large (22oz) McCafe drinks are very similar in ounces to Starbucks Tall (12oz), Grande (16oz) and Venti (20oz Hot/26oz Iced) sizes. Also for comparison would be Dutch Bros (12/16/20), Tim Horton's (10/14/20), and Dunkin’ Donuts (10/14/20). 

When Howard Schultz founded Starbucks, he did it in order to bring the romance of coffee to the USA from Italy. He saw how Italian coffee bars put so much love and life into the art of coffee making, and he wanted to emulate that in the US. 

He wanted to move away from the American view of casual coffee and wanted to make every cup of coffee an experience. A new way of living and loving coffee. He wanted to give the cup sizes different names in order to help curate that idea of a new way of experiencing coffee. 

Schultz wanted to bring more of the Italian love of coffee into his coffee company, which is what moved him to use some Italian as the alternative phrasing to aid in his new coffee experience. 

Anyone with access to the internet can clearly find out that “grande” doesn’t mean “medium” and “venti” clearly doesn’t mean “large”. In fact, a simple translation shows that grande means large. Before the early 90’s, Starbucks didn’t actually have the “Venti” sizing, the only options for sizes were Short (8oz), Tall (12oz) and Grande (16oz). This is a much clearer naming convention and it’s very easy for someone unaccustomed to Starbucks’ size names to figure out which one is which. 

In the early 90’s, however, with the rise of “Supersizing” and larger and larger portions, Starbucks followed suit and added the Venti size to their roster, temporarily eliminating the Short size. The Venti size was named as such since the drink contains 20 ounces of liquid- Venti, translating to 20 in Italian. In doing so, the company shifted all the sizes so that Tall now meant Small, Grande is a Medium and Venti the Large. 

Starbucks Sizes

Some Starbucks locations offer up to six different cup sizes, but not all!

The six sizes, from smallest to largest, are:

Demi (3oz)

Short (8oz)

Tall (12oz)

Grande (16oz)

Venti (20/26oz)

Trenta (30oz)

Demi, 3 ounces

If you’ve never heard of the demi size at Starbucks, don’t feel too ashamed, most baristas likely don’t know it exists either. Most stores aren’t even capable of serving this size with a lid available to you. 

A “demi cup” is likely going to be referred to by your local barista as a “sample cup” as that’s what most stores are trained to use the cup for. Samples and Pup Cups are the most common use of the 3 ounce paper cups at Starbucks. Espresso con panna (espresso with a shot of whipped cream) and other small espresso drinks will more often than not, be served in the 8 ounce tall cups.

Short, 8 ounces

Only available in a paper cup for hot drinks, the 8 ounce short is the smallest size available for hot coffees and lattes, they come with one shot of espresso and two pumps of your syrup flavor of choice. These cups are usually served “double cupped” as the cardboard sleeves are too large to fit around them.

Tall, 12 ounces

The tall size at Starbucks is available as a paper hot cup or a plastic cold cup, this is the smallest size any cold drinks are available in. Your standard latte will come with one shot of espresso and three pumps of the syrup or sauce of your choice. 

Grande, 16 ounces

Also available as hot or iced, the 16 ounce grande size is considered the default for all drinks when they’re initially being rung in by your local barista, and it’s also usually the only size depicted on the menu boards for pricing and calories. A standard grande latte will come with two shots of espresso and four pumps of the syrup or sauce of your choice. The grande size is also the largest size available for Starbucks Nitro Cold Brew. 

Venti, 20 ounces (hot) / 26 ounces (cold)

The venti cups are the only ones that hold a different amount of ounces depending on if you want your drink hot or cold. The hot cup holds 20 ounces and a standard hot venti latte will come with two espresso shots (like a grande) and five pumps of the syrup or sauce of your choice. A venti iced cup, however, holds 24 to 26 ounces (depending on location, although the 26 ounce is more standard), and will get three shots of espresso and six pumps of syrup or sauce in a latte. 

The most common explanation for the difference between the hot and cold venti cups seems to be that the plastic cold cups are bigger so that they can hold ice. If this were the case, then tall and grande cold cups should be a few ounces larger than their hot cup counterparts, but that just isn’t the case.

Trenta, 30 ounces

Finally, we’ve reached the other end of the cup spectrum. Where short cups are only available as the smallest hot cup size, trenta cups are only available as the largest cold cups. And with that, they’re only available for certain drinks off the menu. You can get any of your __- cream cold brews in the trenta size, as well as any refresher or iced tea, you can even get normal iced cold brew or iced coffee in the trenta size, but you cannot order a latte or frappuccino in a trenta cup. 

As far as the company has stated, the reason behind not allowing lattes to be ordered in the trenta size boils down to the fact that there would “simply be too many calories to serve a drink like that in good conscience”.