My god I hate the coffee snobs. Every day, walking into work, along High Street, they rush past me, the women in trainers rather than shoes, the men in jogging shorts, all grasping their cardboard cups while trying to look assertive.

Now clearly they’re delusional – Cornmarket, even on days when Oxford overflows with American tourists, can never hope to emulate Fifth Avenue.

But that doesn’t seem to deter anyone. After all, if you want to get on in today’s dog-eat-dog world, success and failure can be truly measured by only one yardstick – the coffee you drink.

Not that there’s any such thing as a simple ‘cuppa’ nowadays. For instance, when placing your order at, say, Starbucks, you first have to remember that there are two types of coffee – hot or iced.

After that, it’s the size you need to concentrate on – do you want ‘short’, ‘tall’, ‘grande’ or ‘venti’? (that’s small, medium, large and extra large).

Step Three is actually all about choosing your drink. First there’s the ho-hum, nope-they’re-not-with-me, average, everyday, run-of-the-mill coffee (but no one EVER asks for that – unless, that is, you want people to point). Instead – and feigning confidence – you ask for the ‘feature’ coffee, which is either strong, dark or mild roast. And it’s at this point that the coffee virgin loses their innocence.

You see, there’s: the latte (espresso and steamed milk), the Americano (espresso and hot water), the espresso con panna (espresso with whipped cream), the espresso machiatto (espresso with a small spoon of foamed milk), the caramel machiatto (a ‘vanilla latte’ with caramel sauce), the cafe au lait or misto (coffee with steamed milk), a cappuccino (1/3 steamed milk, 1/3 espresso, 1/3 foamed milk), a frappuccino (ice beverage with a creme and coffee base), a mocha (espresso and steamed milk with chocolate), a white mocha (mocha with white chocolate syrup), and a mocha Valencia (mocha but with orange syrup).

Got that? Good, because it’s not over yet.

For drinks that include milk and foam, you have to know that ‘dry’ means more foam and less milk, while ‘wet’ means more milk and less foam. And remember, you haven’t even decided yet how strong you want it. There’s the single (one shot of espresso), the double, the triple and quad.

As for milk or cream, choose between the default (two per cent milk), the skinny (non-fat milk), whole milk, organic milk and soy (if you prefer a milk substitute).

Which leads you neatly to those final, all-important, finishing touches – do you want it extra hot, without foam, without whip, with room for cream, extra ice, light ice or Sweet ‘n’ Low (you can ask the ‘barista’ – that’s the coffee maker – to use a sugar free sweetener).

Meaning all you need do now is march right into a Starbucks or Costa and, as Niles Crane once phrased it in an episode of Frasier, ask for a “Double cappuccino, half-caf, not-fat milk, with just enough foam to be aesthetically pleasing but not so much that it leaves a moustache.”

I mean – what could be easier?