'Tis but thy sweetness that is my enemy; Thou art super sweet, though no sugar. What's correct? it is nor no sugar, nor no syrup, Nor wăan nói , nor mâi wăan, nor any other phrase Belonging to a man. O, be some other way!
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to order your coffee differently, you still end up getting an oversweetened coffee. Let's see why it is so.
In Thailand, most coffee shops (I'm talking about the local ones) use these ingredients
Sugar and/or sugar cane syrup
Creamer
Condensed milk
Bland-condensed milk
Milk
Depending on the coffee you order, they will add 3-5 of these in your single cup of coffee. So if you're saying something like; "No sugar" or "ไม่หวาน mâi wăan", they'll still be adding condensed milk, and bland condensed milk to it.
What to say then? Well, if you're unsure of the ingredients they're using, you could say, "ไม่หวานเลย mâi wăan loiie" which is zero sweetness; no sugar, no syrup, no condensed milk, none of the sweetenings. You'll still see them adding bland condensed milk though because that doesn't add any sweetness to your coffee. If you don't want that either, you have to say "ใส่นมสด sài nom sòt"
ใส่ sài = to put in
นมสด nom sòt = whole milk.
Now, sometimes although you say "นมสด nom sòt", they'll still be using bland-condensed milk. Why? Because it's wayyy cheaper and it does the job, so they call bland-condensed milk "นมสด nom sòt" too.
When this happens, what you have to do is to say the name of the brands instead. The most used bland-condensed milk is this one:
We call this: นมคาร์เนชั่น nom kaa-nay-chân
If you don't want it, you can say:
"ไม่ใส่นมคาร์เนชั่น mâi sài nom kaa-nay-chân"
As for whole milk, most coffee shops use this one because it makes the best froth:
We call this: นมเมจิ nom may-jì
If you want it, you can say:
"ใส่นมเมจิ sài nom may-jì"
Or if you want just coffee with whole milk, you can say:
"ขอกาแฟใส่แต่นมเมจิ kŏr gaa-fae sài dtàe nom may-jì"
Now, they'll also use creamer. We also call it by the name of the brand which is "คอฟฟี่เมต kóf-fêe-mèt" Yup! that's Coffee-mate. So, if you don't want that either, you can say: "ไม่ใส่คอฟฟี่เมต kóf-fêe-mèt"
If you want to customise it even more, you could use these phrases to order your preferred sweetness level.
เพิ่มหวาน pêrm wăan = extra sweetness
หวานปกติ wăan bpòk-gà-dtì = normal sweetness
หวานน้อย wăan nói = less sweetness
ไม่หวานเลย mâi wăan loiie = zero sweetness
Most coffee shops now use percentages instead which I find more practical. You'll see something like this:
NOTE: BE CAREFUL WITH THE TONE IN THE WORD น้อย nói
น้อย nói with a high tone means a little, a few, or less. There's another word that sounds very similar, and that is หน่อย nòi (with a low tone). If you use this in your order, you're ordering a cup of extra sweet coffee! หน่อย nòi here can be translated to "quite". So instead of saying, "I want my coffee to be less sweet", you could be saying, "I want my coffee to be quite sweet!"
Check out my video:
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