I was recently reading a continuous chortle of an exploration of French culture through vocabulary. Entitled Pardon my French: Unleash your inner Gaul by Charles Timoney, it outlines all those little essential facts and factors of establishing a life in France.

But one particular entry comes to mind frequently (although I wish it didn’t because Guillaume and I then kill ourselves laughing for no externally discernable reason) and I’ll include it here to taint any future experiences in French cafés for the rest of you!

Timoney writes:

If you listen carefully the next time you go to a café or brasserie, you will hear the double coffee order… [the waiter] calls the order to the barman who will then get it ready and set the cups on the bar. What is interesting is that the waiter repeats the number of coffees ordered just after the word ‘cafés’. Thus, instead of calling out, ‘Deux cafés!’, the waiter in fact shouts, ‘Deux cafés… deux!’

As I was rolling around in stitches reading out the rest of the passage to Guillaume, we reflected how true (and ridiculous) it really was. I mean, it’s not really a vote of confidence to the skills and perceptivity of the bartender now, is it?

Maybe the bartenders are a breed of their own, prone to dozing off and forgetting what they’re actually doing behind the bar. Slowly nodding off into a counter-top coma, perhaps they are only jolted to attention by the cry of ‘cafés’ but are at a loss to the quantity.

Did he say one, three or even four? That’s when the repeated number comes in to play, and he can happily prepare the daily caffeine fix for the clients.

Listen carefully next time you order your coffees and just try to suppress a smile.

With all my thanks to Jonathan Li for these wonderfully expressive espresso pix!