Two coffees / two coffee / two cups of coffee (2024)

According to a Japanese engineer who he says has been trained among English-speaking people,
Two cups of coffee can be shortened to “two coffee.”
“Coffee” is an uncountable noun, and “two coffees” sounds awkward, so they say “two coffee.”

What do you think about this?

I think "coffee" is originally uncountable, but can be used like "two coffees" as a countable noun.

Thank you in advance!

I agree with Copyright. Your engineer friend is very mistaken; you cannot shorten "two cups of coffee" to "two coffee", which would sound extremely strange. There is also nothing awkward about saying "two coffees", which is common and natural.

Note that nouns that are normally uncountable can become countable when you mean a type, or kind, or serving of that item:

Please bring us three coffees, two teas, four red wines, and two white wines.
I ordered two coffees with sugar but no milk, and two coffees with milk and no sugar.
In the Olympic medal count, Ruritania is leading with six golds, four silvers, and three bronzes.

wind-sky-wind said:

I'd like you to be a little more serious, because I was made a fool of by him, saying, "You're just a teacher of English."

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Context you didn't give us, so we can reply as we like, I'm afraid.

In this case, I don't know how you could be made a fool of unless you let it happen: you're an English teacher and he's an engineer. I know who I would want to get my English lessons from.

Him: You're just a teacher of English.
You: That's "English teacher" to you. And you're just an engineer, so why don't you go bolt something together?

This Bertrand Russell quote might help you to feel less foolish:
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Any doubts, come talk to us (as you have).

I agree with all the above, mostly
It is the usage I am familiar with in any context where someone is relating a set of individual orders.

The 'mostly' is because I am also familiar with the singular form - 'two coffee'.
On the third Friday of each month I fill fourteen 3-litre vacuum flasks. Some with tea, some coffee, some hot water.
The numbers of each vary a little, so I read off the list for the evening. For example, 'Two tea, two coffee, eight hot water, two soup water*'.

I mention this usage because I would not be surprised to hear it in another context where bulk quantities of coffee/tea were involved - boxes/cartons of coffee/tea, for example.

* Soup water is water to be used for reconstituting dehydrated soup. It has to be a bit less hot than hot water

panjandrum said:

The 'mostly' is because I am also familiar with the singular form - 'two coffee'.

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I'm pretty certain I heard this too from real native speakers (UK, US, Australia).

Grammatically I see the name of the drink/dish as an attribute or fixed name that remains uninflected.
For instance, in a restaurant you might order "2 times Sauerkraut" and elided it becomes "2 Sauerkraut" (I trust, nobody would say *"2 Sauerkrauts"), or 2 Beef Stroganov (not *2 Beefs Stroganov)
Similarly, I see "2 coffee" as elided version of 2 [cups of] coffee.

manfy said:

Similarly, I see "2 coffee" as elided version of 2 [cups of] coffee.

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That's interesting: I would always say "two coffees" (plural) because "cups" is plural. It seems to me grammatically odd to use "two" followed by a singular.

So I'd say "Two coffees, please: one black, one with milk and sugar."

Englishmypassion said:

Two coffees, please: one hot, one cold.

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I don't know that we order "cold coffee," so much as "iced coffee."

For me as a non-native speaker it doesn't sound odd, simply because we do the very same thing in German.
And oddly enough, some words we do pluralize, some others we do not.

My English is primarily based on whatever I have picked up in my environments since I started learning the language.
So, I'd intuitively say "2 Whiskeys, please", but only "2 Scotch" or "2 Bourbon" or "2 Sex on the beach". I have no dobt that a good part of it might be grammatically wrong or at least questionable. But a lot of native speakers do speak that way (outside any class room) ...actually in my own language, too...

Oh, then it may be an Indianism. I often hear

coffee and very rarely

coffee here. Thanks a lot. I learnt the correct thing.

Hi

So 2 orange juices would be correct too? Right?

mooty said:

Hi

So 2 orange juices would be correct too? Right?

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Are you thinking of ordering them at a restaurant or café?

Glenfarclas said:

Are you thinking of ordering them at a restaurant or café?

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yes.

mooty said:

yes.

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Then yes.

I've never heard any first language speaker use "two coffee", either in BrE or AmE, when they are ordering "two coffees". As someone else said, it sounds very, very odd to hear someone say "two coffee".

It is used in restaurant kitchens, behind the scenes, purely for speed. It is also used in kitchens for recipes where "two coffee" is short for "two [measures of] coffee".

Using "two coffee" in a cafe, or anywhere else, to order drinks just sounds completely wrong.

You are correct Wind-Sky-Wind. Your engineer friend is wrong.

In this example, even I would use the singular:

Mahantongo said:

In the Olympic medal count, Ruritania is leading with six golds, four silvers, and three bronzes.

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wind-sky-wind said:

I think "coffee" is originally uncountable, but can be used like "two coffees" as a countable noun.

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"Two coffees" is used in ordering. It means "two servings of coffee". We use similar expressions when ordering any item that is sold in known units: two cheesburgers, two light beers, two small fries (two small-size servings of french fried potatoes) etc.

In English we can omit "servings of" but when we do, we take the "s" and put it on the noun. We don't say "two (servings of) beer".

Copyright said:

Two coffees, please. "Too coffee" is quite odd for me, especially since I don't drink coffee.

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Hi to all on the forum
I was at the "Pattaya expats club"(I live in Thailand) yesterday and there was a conference on "green coffee beans".
They used "coffee" several times in the plural.
I was very surprised.
To one question there was the answer
"two coffees".
The speaker and the questioner were both English.(UK)
Thank you.

Do you have an exact sentence they said? It sounds like they were talking about different varieties of coffee. That is a legitimate use for a plural.

Example:

Coffees from all over the world were entered in the competition.

nongprue said:

To one question there was the answer
"two coffees".

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What was the question? As well as kentix's suggestion, the answer would be perfectly natural if, for instance, the question was 'What would you like?'