Costa Coffee Confirms Larger Latte Cup Contains No More Coffee For $1 More

Costa Coffee, the second largest coffee chain after Starbucks, has been accused of under-filling their latte product in the United Kingdom and has confessed.

Costa Coffee, a popular coffee bar franchise, was recently accused of selling the regular amount of latte in their larger cups for 30p ($1) more. The company has now admitted this fact.

It seems a couple of the most popular coffee outlets in the U.S. and the United Kingdom are under-serving their valued customers. The Inquisitr recently reported the story of a class-action law suit, launched against Starbucks for their less-than-full lattes. In that case, the coffee giant was under-filling cups by as much as 25 percent.

However Starbucks was also accused of short-changing people with their espressos, after a regular client ran a video experiment with his own, well marked, shot glass.

Now Costa Coffee is facing similar accusations in the United Kingdom, after they made a promotional statement last week: “When purchasing a large Costa Express drink you are receiving an extra shot of coffee and additional drink, compared to a regular size.”

It turns out that when purchasing the large drink, you are definitely getting a bigger cup, but no more coffee.

Sir Costa-lot: World’s 2nd biggest coffee chain accused of ripping off customers https://t.co/kptWbnpaco pic.twitter.com/znnOvbtU2P

— RT (@RT_com) April 3, 2016

Earlier in the week a London man, Paul Hopkinson, posted a video on Facebook – which has since gone viral – where he pours the entire contents of a large latte into a regular sized cup, without spilling a single drop.

In the video Hopkinson explains that he and his colleagues had noticed they were paying more for their large coffee and wanted to find out exactly what they were getting for their money. View the video experiment below. The original video can be viewed on the Facebook page here.

Hopkinson bought his latte from a Costa Coffee self service machine and easily fitted it into a smaller cup, saying: “There you go, country of England, the regular and the large are indeed exactly the same size. Whoops Costa, oh dear.”

The video was reportedly posted by Hopkinson to Costa Coffee’s Facebook page, a post which has, apparently, since been deleted. However, despite the fact it was taken down from the Costa page, the clip has received more than 12 million views, leaving the United Kingdom coffee giant a little explaining to do.

Sneaky sneaky, Costa Coffee. https://t.co/j18u38UxDL

— Steve Burke (@SteveBurkeMusic) April 3, 2016

As reported by the Irish Mirror, initially a spokesperson for Costa Coffee told Hopkinson in a response: “Despite what it looks like I can assure you you’re not being duped in anyway.”

“The regular cup is a 12oz and the large is a 16oz so there is 4 fluid oz in size difference.

“Plus you also get the extra shot of coffee, hence the price difference!”

They added that for safety reasons, there is no way they would be able to fill the large cup that high, “as it would end up burning someone.”

Despite that, the company has now fessed up, and told Buzzfeed UK that while other coffee drinks they serve in the United Kingdom – including the cappuccino and Americano – do contain an additional shot, the large and regular lattes both only contain the regular two shots of coffee.

According to a spokesman for Costa Coffee in the United Kingdom, the additional 30p ($1) is to cover the cost of an additional 4 fluid oz of milk instead, adding: “A large Costa Express latte is the only drink where both the large and regular has two shots.”

Hopkinson immediately updated his Facebook post saying he feels vindicated, but addressing the popular coffee giant as follows: “Dear Costa, I posted this to your page & you deleted it!?? When it hit 219,000 views!!!!!! You were commenting on the wall etc.. you deleted it? Why?? If there is nothing to hide? You don’t delete other posts…. Is it because it got so many hits?”

Of course, the Facebook post has had many more millions of views since then.

When buying a latte from Costa Coffee in the United Kingdom it seems you must beware, unless you are happy to pay the extra money for more milk, not more coffee.

Readers, if you have Costa Coffee outlets in your country, why not run an experiment to see if you are also being duped. It sounds likely.

[Photo via Flickr by Shereen M, cropped and resized/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]