‘Tell your employees to use the d*mn shaker’: Customer calls out Starbucks baristas for not shaking their teas

A former Starbucks barista shared a rant on TikTok she claims she'd been saying up for "two or three years" about how her requests to have refreshers and teas mixed in a shaker have been ignored.

The video comes from TikToker Calista, who put her video up on Saturday, with more than 20,000 people checking out her views on Starbucks since.

"I've been keeping my peace on this for like two to three years," she begins. "You know what, it's time for me to let it out."

She then quips, "Before I start, this really isn't that big of a deal, but it's kind of a big deal," before directly addressing Starbucks with, "I've got a bone to pick with y'all."

@calistalegau This has been heavy on my heart, as you can tell 🤣🤣 #starbucks #rant #starbucksdrinks #barista #coffee #storytime ♬ original sound - Calista

Calista goes on to extol the virtues of the shaker, and how the drinks she orders are so much better when they're made with a shaker — something she says she learned in her time working for the Seattle-based chain.

"It just makes it taste better," she says. "Everything mixes together better. The ice mixes with the drinks, so the drink is nice and cold, it's a little bit frothy at the top and it makes it really delicious. And it's supposed to be that way because that's the way that the Starbucks recipe is."

She continues, "When I go through I specifically request it to be extra shaken. And before you even call me a 'Karen,' I have to say that and almost every time, the person is taking my order, they go, 'actually, our drinks are always made in the shaker.'"

Calista then details a typical exchange in which she gets to the drive-thru window, gets the drink, sees that it's not shaken, and confronts the cashier who then confers with the barista before giving her a clearly-unshaken drink.

In particular, she notes that a freshly-shaken drink would have a telltale frothy bubbling at the top of it; in the video, she displays a drink that does not exhibit that hallmark trait.

"They're not shaking nothin'," she complains. "Not shakin' ass, not shakin' my drink, man."

She presented Starbucks with two choices to close out her TikTok. "Starbucks headquarters, tell your employees to use a damn shaker or take that shit off the menu," she says. "I mean, either/or, like we're either going to make it the right way, or we're not going to make it at all."

A number of viewers commented on the video to talk about how their drinks had been properly shaken.

"It's standard for us to shake it!" one claimed. "It literally takes five seconds I hate it when people don’t shake the drinks."

One cautioned, "I used to work at Starbucks and the shakers are not very sanitary and it wasn’t just the store I worked at either."

Calista, drawing on her barista experience, replied, "Mine had a cleaner that we used in between drinks." She then added that they "also had a more intense cleaner in the back for food allergies/contaminants."

Another wondered, "Why can’t you shake it after?"

That led Calista to comment, "Why would I do something that was literally supposed to be done by the person making it? If you mean shaking it, like in the cup, it doesn’t do the trick."

One made a claim that Starbucks is taking shaking seriously, noting, "When I worked there like three years ago, people were getting fired because they weren't shaking the teas."

Calista responded, "OMG, no way, HAHAHA. I didn’t know this had so many layers."

The Daily Dot has reached out to Calista via comment and to Starbucks via email to its media relations department.

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