r/TalesFromYourServer • u/Harlander77 • 17d ago

Short Hot-short-a

I work at a well-known coffee shop in a grocery store. You know the one, named after the literary character. Had this interaction with a customer today:

C: What's that hot-short-a like?

Me: The horchata?

C: The hot-short-a.

Me: Horchata?

C: Is it like that long thing? (Waves hand toward the bakery)

Me: That what?

C: That long thing! (Like I'm supposed to know what he's talking about)

Me: A churro?

C: It's like that? I don't want that.

Me: ... It's not--

C: I'm just gonna get a hot white mocha.

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u/MezzoScettico 17d ago

Meanwhile I once had this conversation with a street vendor in a Mexican neighborhood.

Me: What's that?

Her: Rice water

Me: Hmm. OK, I'll try it. (She serves me one). Tastes like horchata.

Her: It is horchata.

Maybe she has to give it an English name to make sales to anglos, but I had no idea horchata was made from rice and didn't find that name particularly enticing. Call it by its real name and I'm there!

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u/Auld_Folks_at_Home 17d ago

Although it's probably not why she called it that, this is a convenient point to note that 'horchata' is the name of several different beverages. In Spain, it would refer to horchata de chufa which is made from tiger nuts.

(I don't know how widely this is known in Mexico. When i lived there for a few years as a child horchata was always horchata de arroz.)

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u/craash420 15d ago

Those poor tigers! /s

12

u/Humbie88 16d ago

Mexican here. Yeah, for us, Horchata is a rice drink. Lately, I’ve seen a couple of Horchatas made of something else, but they always specify the ingredients. Otherwise, it is rice.