Coffee is an internationally enjoyed beverage with a selection as diverse as the crowd that drinks it. Some people speculate that the college years seem to be the time when people settle into the comfortable leather sofas of coffee culture.

Taylor Stichka, senior in elementary education and employee of Stomping Grounds, 303 Welch Avenue, said he rarely sees customers who don’t know anything about coffee. He said in high school, he didn’t really drink it at all. To him, it’s more of a college habit.

It also took him a while to get used to making it.

“I’d say [it took me] two to three weeks to get kind of everything down pretty well – I mean, like the procedure, the steps for making the drinks,” he said.

It takes at least another month, he said, to be able to make quality drinks in good time.

Most students don’t need to know as much as Stichka, but an introduction to coffee lingo and components might be helpful to those new to campus life and late night caffeine needs.

To start with the basics, “drip coffee” or “brewed coffee” is plain, black coffee. Many consumers add cream, sugar or a flavored creamer.

“The thing [students] should not be intimidated by is the sizes,” said Jon Reed, Stomping Grounds owner, “because most places have two elements. There’s the size of the cup and the amount of the espresso in it.”

Cup sizes are measured in “short” and “tall,” and a “single” and “double” indicate the number of shots of espresso.

Espresso is made by forcing steam through darkly roasted, very fine coffee grounds. It has an intense flavor and is the basic ingredient in most coffee drinks.

Reed has noticed that some customers are confused about terms, but he attributes the confusion not to ignorance, but to differing meanings for the same terms or made-up terms people think are universal.

For example, Reed discussed the word “macchiato,” which Starbucks harnessed as a name for one of its sweet specialty drinks, a Caramel Macchiato.

“[A real macchiato] is a very small, about two-ounce drink. [It’s] really, really strong coffee, like an espresso,” he said.

However, Reed said Starbucks’ drink is essentially a latte. Lattes, or cafe lattes, consist of espresso, steamed milk and frothed milk, and almost always have another flavor added, such as caramel.

When people come into Stomping Grounds with a sweet, fluffy latte-esque Starbucks drink in mind and ask for a caramel macchiato, Reed said he knows what they’re asking for.

“That would be a huge wake-up call for them if we actually gave them [the original kind],” Reed said.

A couple things that distinguish the Starbucks version from a typical latte are its especially thick, caramel syrup and the way the ingredients are put in.

“It’s like a regular drink, but it’s made in the opposite order. So the shots, instead of going in at the bottom, go on top,” said Amanda Larkin, senior in marketing and former Starbucks employee. Larkin now works at Taraccino Coffee, 539 Lincoln Way.

There are many causes for all the variations, Reed said, but he thinks most of them are based on Starbucks.

“Well, I think one reason for [the differences] is because espresso as a drink, or as a tradition, has been around for a really long time in Europe, and it’s just [been] a very short time here,” he said. “When it came here [to the United States], Starbucks essentially brought it here – or made it big – and they did it through marketing terms.”

Confusing or not, coffee is still as popular as ever, especially on college campuses.

“It is a culture now,” Larkin said.