Happy Canada to all! And on this Canada, what most are probably going to see as a most unpatriotic post; which do you prefer, Starbucks coffee or Tim Hortons?
For me, if I have a choice, it is Starbucks over Tim Hortons every time. The coffee is always brewed perfectly and the taste is always perfect. Bold flavours that soothe the sleepy palate to awareness in every cup. Starbucks coffee is best served and consumed black, without the pollution of cream, or worse, milk, or sugar.
Tim Hortons coffee tastes so awful on its own that if I have no choice and I have to have a Timmies, I have to add double cream and double sugar. The classic Canadian double-double. That is the only way that it is consumable.
And if you add in the independent coffee seller? Yuck. Scalding hot black stuff that smells faintly like coffee. Awful. And they all think they can sell their swill at Starbucks prices.
Starbucks is the best thing to happen to coffee in a very long time.
Comments
2 responses to “Happy Canada Day; Will it be Starbucks or Tim Hortons Today?”
Man, do I ever agree with you. I am so tired of people calling me a stick in the mud or a snob because I call TH out on the nasty quality of their coffee. Starbucks is infinitely better than TH for the quality of coffee. So many people complain that Starbucks is (1) expensive, and (2) the coffee is “burnt”. B.S.! The dark roast coffees can be overly torrefied, but the regular “mild” is at least coffee, not the low-grade brown-grey swill that TH sells so much of. I think that it comes down to business shrewdness on TH corporate’s part, and on the general lack of standards of the “golden middle” of the consumer base. TH makes perfectly good food–the cookies are good, the donuts are okay if you like donuts, and the lunch menu is decent. The only thing I drink there regularly is…black tea. But the coffee is an embarrassment for anyone who loves quality.
I’m with you both on TH Coffee. It always seems like a nice idea, but the followthrough just isn’t there. I really wasn’t into it at all anymore after I found out that the chain was actually owned by Wendy’s BUT it seems that a few years ago it was repatriated as a Canadian company, so fundamentally I have to support it more because of that. I still sneak into Starbucks from time to time though.
And in the end, and especially because I live on the Drive, the verdict really has to be local indie coffee shop. Prado, Uprising, Pane Vero, these are the ones we should be supporting. Local families, and money really stays here, rather than going into franchising fees.