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On both Star Trek series where he appears, O'Brien's standard coffee order seems to be "black, double sweet." In the TNG episode "Rascals," Keiko even knows that it's his standard order.

However, in the DS9 episode "Whispers," he repeatedly orders his coffee "Jamaican blend, double strong, double sweet."

This happens four or five times in the episode, including right at the beginning. He never orders coffee this way in any other episode.

Additionally, the plot twist in that episode is that

the O'Brien we're seeing is actually an unknowing duplicate, created to sabotage the peace-talks-of-the-week.

One could suppose that

the duplicate O'Brien has slightly different taste in coffee than the real one, and this is intended to be a subtle clue that he's a duplicate.

Then again, it's also possible that he's just drinking stronger coffee than usual because he spends the entire episode sleep-deprived.

Is there any evidence (in canon, or in creator commentary) that would distinguish between these two theories?

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    I think you answered your own question Aug 28, 2013 at 20:40
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    Commentary on Memory Alpha seems to indicate "Jamaican blend, double strong, double sweet" is his usual. Are you sure he ordered it the same way every time? Even from the replicator, where the article says, "orders the replicator to produce his usual blend of coffee" ?
    – Izkata
    Aug 28, 2013 at 23:00
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    @Izkata: This site has transcripts of all the TNG and DS9 episodes. Here's a relevant google search of that site. Unless Google's indexing is incomplete, this episode is the only one where he orders Jamaican coffee. I think the MemoryAlpha guys just screwed up.
    – Micah
    Aug 29, 2013 at 0:14
  • @Micah I meant that episode, specifically when Memory Alpha says he asks the replicator for his "usual blend" - you just watched the episode (I assume), so I'm hoping you can confirm/deny. If he did ask the replicator for his usual and didn't complain, then it was his usual. If he did specify the type, someone should probably update that part of the summary just so it doesn't imply either way.
    – Izkata
    Aug 29, 2013 at 1:05
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    I wonder if he ever ordered none pizza with left beef...
    – Monty129
    Jun 30, 2014 at 21:13

1 Answer 1

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As you've pointed out, we see O'Brien drinking coffee on several occasions, initially on the Enterprise when he asks Keko to get him a coffee then again in the episode 'Babel' (where he orders his own coffee "black, double sweet". We also learn in "Armageddon Game" that he generally drinks in both the morning and afternoon when on duty.

Colm Meaney made the point that in the episode "Whispers" the replicant O'Brien wasn't acting oddly but was in fact acting perfectly normally in response to the odd behaviour of those around him.

This would strongly suggest that his coffee order was nothing out of the ordinary, albeit presumably driven by his desire to remain alert, hence the fact that he's ordered a slightly stronger blend and then made it even stronger.

"In order not to give away what was going on to the audience, we tried to keep him exactly the same, even though it was a different O'Brien. I played it exactly the way I usually do. It was only the circumstances around him that were weird and gave you the feeling that something else was going on."

Miles O'Brien Whispers Coffee

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