Tall is small?

Lets start with one of the most universal questions in coffee, why at Starbucks (and thus many other coffee shops) is the small size called tall?

The answer is actually quite simple - it isn't (at least not at Starbucks where this strange cup size name thing started in the first place). The small size is called short, but a short cup is only 240ml(8oz.) which, in these times of excess, almost no one wants.

When Starkbucks first started serving brewed coffee (actually it was Il Giornale then, which later bought Starbucks and took over the name, but that is another story) the sizes were short, tall, and grande - which makes perfect sense. Thing is, almost no one was ordering the short, in fact more than 50% of sales were of the grande size - which is twice the size of a short, so seeing that people wanted bigger coffee, they added a larger size called Venti*, which means 20 in Italian (it's a 20oz.(591ml) cup.**) and eventually dropped short form the menu.

Starbucks does still carry the short cups, and all hot drinks are available in that size (there is no short cup for cold beverages) mostly because this is a handy size for things like double espressos, kid's hot chocolates, and the like. But with more than 50% of sales still being grande sized, there is little reason to advertise that.

* Starbucks has actually copyrighted this name, which is why at many other coffee shops tall and grande have the same name, but the largest size has a different one. I wont even go into the implications about copyrighting a number - but I guess the card game "Uno" did it to without destroying society.

** Actually only the hot Venti cup is 20oz., the cold version is 24oz.(710ml) which makes the name a bit silly.