Big News in The Barista Times
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: STARBUCKS SET TO LAUNCH NEW SIZE COFFEE
Baristas, prepare to have the very foundation with which your world rests upon shaken, then poured over ice and sold for $9.95. Starbucks has announced they’ll be launching a fourth size at their stores come this summer — a 30 ounce beverage the company has dubbed the Trenta.
If only LeRoy Watkins had lived to see this day. LeRoy was a barista at our New Orleans flagship store, as some of you may already know. He joined Starbucks in the late 1990s and he began writing for the Barista Times soon after, first as a hard news reporter and later as a much-beloved columnist.
LeRoy’s columns were often filled with a triple shot of humor, two pumps of insight and two cubes of heart and soul. And they were always warm, never served over ice… if you know what I mean.
A topic LeRoy seemed to set his sights on early was the issue of Starbucks’ drink sizes. The locals who stopped by LeRoy’s Starbucks every morning, noon and night seemed to always ask about when Starbucks was going to introduce a larger size, and LeRoy never failed in regaling us with their wonderful, humorous stories in his columns.
As LeRoy wrote in the July, 2002 issue of the Barista Times:
“WEN YALL MOTHAFUCKAZ GON GIT WIT DEM NEW SIZES? MY [n word]S, DIZ SHIT BE A FUCKIN’JOKE AND A HALF.
BITCHEZ BE ASKIN FO’ DEM BIGGA SIEZS SO THEY CAN BE STAYIN UP ON DA BLOCK, SLANGIN DAT ROCK. DA BLOCK IS HOT, LIKE MY LIL [n word] WAYNE SEYD. [N word]S NEED DAT 30 OUNCEZ SO THEY DONT BE DIPPIN IN DEM DEY OWN SUPPLY NOW.
BE EASY.”
LeRoy was killed by the Crips in the summer of 2005. He will be missed.