(Image source from: CNN.com)

Los Angeles:
An American coffee company, Starbucks is facing accusations of racism nearly two weeks ahead of their day of National Wide Racial Bias Training, after a Latino customer discovered a racial slur written on his coffee cup.

A Latino named, Priscilla Hernandez’s co-worker ordered a white chocolate mocha and an iced caramel macchiato telling his name is Pedro and when she received her order she noticed a label on the cup saying “beaner” a derogatory term for Mexicans in United States.

"I asked him if he realized what they had put on his cup. He said no. So I was really upset about it, because that isn't OK," she said.

She further said that she called the store and told her their employee couldn't understand what Pedro had told them, they even offered $50 gift card.

"Out of all the names they would've put on his coffees for 'misunderstanding' him they decide to put 'beaner’, noting that the Starbucks employees apparently understood Pedro well enough to get his drink orders right,” she said.

Hernandez followed up with a complaint to star bucks on Twitter with an instant response from Starbucks saying, "Thank you for letting us know, Priscilla. This is not the welcoming experience we aim to provide, and we have reached out to this customer to apologize and make this right."

Erin, a Starbucks spokesperson said, “Met with customer this morning at one of our local stores in the area and he accepted our apology. This kind of mistake is unacceptable and we will take additional steps to assess what happened here and how are partners can be better.”

The coffee company is planning to close all its stores on the afternoon of May 29 to provide racial-bias training to its employees. The training is being conducted in response to the arrest of two African-American men last month at Philadelphia Starbucks while they were waiting for a business meeting.

By Sowmya Sangam