Everything you’re authorised to know about the CIA branch of Starbucks

http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/sep/29/cia-branch-of-starbucks-langley

Version 0 of 1.

Age: classified.

Appearance: to all intents and purposes, just another soulless Starbucks outlet.

You got that right: blond wood chairs and tables, staff in green, lots of muffins, Coldplay drizzling from the speakers. Exactly – nothing remotely interesting or unusual about it.

While we’re here, I could really do with a coffee. Me too – mine’s a latte.

OK. Tall, grande or venti? No comment.

One shot or two? I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.

Dude, maybe you’ve had enough coffee already. Sssh. This may look like an ordinary Starbucks, but it isn’t.

What are you on about? This is Store No 1, as the receipts say – a code name for the Starbucks inside the CIA’s Langley compound.

It’s certainly a busy franchise. One of the busiest. People really like coffee here.

Like any other Starbucks. Except at this one the baristas have all undergone extensive background checks, and are escorted to and from the premises by minders.

Wow. I bet they have a lot of funny stories about work they can’t tell anyone. Yup. Like the supervisor who wanted staff to write customers’ names on the cups like they do at all the other Starbucks.

They didn’t go for it? “Giving any name at all was making people – you know, undercover agents – feel very uncomfortable,” one anonymous catering spook told the Washington Post. “It just didn’t work for this location.”

I guess you can’t be too careful, although it actually sounds as if they are. They also don’t give out loyalty cards, for fear the data stored on them might fall into the wrong hands.

Yes, well, I can see that someone who had ordered a pumpkin spice latte every day for a week might be susceptible to blackmail. Actually the vanilla latte is most popular during the day; the Frappuccino drinkers tend to come out at night.

Why is that? I’ve already said too much.

Do say: “That’s a tall skinny flat white for the tall skinny flat white lady. And don’t worry, madam – the sprinkles on the top have been securely encrypted.”

Don’t say: “The WiFi password? Hang on, I’ll write it down for you.”