Coffee: McDonalds, Tim Hortons, Starbucks...or?

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Go to some places in Europe and try asking for a coffee. They'll just stare at you blankly or give you something wrong like an Americano.
They have 30+ types, but don't have coffee, as we know it.

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Baggsy said:
Go to some places in Europe and try asking for a coffee. They'll just stare at you blankly or give you something wrong like an Americano.
They have 30+ types, but don't have coffee, as we know it.

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Some of these are new to me. Never heard of a Romano before.

I like the callout between an caffe latte and latte machiatto - but the minute to stir them, they're the same lol

I've seen a lot of coffee shops have these sorts of charts, but most don't really follow these... There is no real discernable difference for most places between a flat white, a caffe latte, and a cappucino. Some pay more attention than others, but it's still not always super clear.
 
Chaos said:
Some of these are new to me. Never heard of a Romano before.

I like the callout between an caffe latte and latte machiatto - but the minute to stir them, they're the same lol

I've seen a lot of coffee shops have these sorts of charts, but most don't really follow these... There is no real discernable difference for most places between a flat white, a caffe latte, and a cappucino. Some pay more attention than others, but it's still not always super clear.
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I dont like the percentages shown on that chart, they are more a representation of the components, not the amount of each.

I havent heard of romano either, but I suspect it's not more than 50% lemon juice.
 
GreyGhost said:
I have never had great luck with a mocha pot. I've tried many times and had old italian ladies make me some and its passable, but never my preferred choice.
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My grandmother taught me how to use one (stereotypical Italian boy here ) it's all in how you layer and pack the grinds. And never use soap to clean the pot, always hot water only. In the phobic world we live in that might scare some people but the coffee tastes better the older the pot gets.
 
used to have frequent connecting flights through Europe
first one through Frankfurt, then switched to Heathrow
because of coffee

time to kill in Frankfurt AP, decided to go for breakfast
ordered an americano and my food
coffee came and was really small, and also 4 Euros
food showed up and I was looking for more coffee
asked the waiter for a refill, no bueno

was told in rather rude and arrogant broken English
in Germany you don't get more
here you must buy another one
click of his heels, turned and gone
the nazi salute was probably just my imagination
but I can't be sure, and he didn't return with another one
 
Free refills are a North American thing. The normal North American coffee is basically coloured hot water anyhow, practically free.

An espresso in Italy - at least in rural Italy - is cheap, like 1 euro.
 
Between the ones you listed:

I find McDonalds is actually quite great.
Tim Hortons is fine, and is my daily morning cup because I don't mind it and I like the blue-collar-ness of it. Also it's on the way to the subway station when I go to work.
Starbucks is the bane of coffee imo. I don't think I've ever had worse coffee in my life than every time I hit up a starbucks. Acidity through the roof and burnt to ****...

I used to really love espresso bars and fancy independent places. But third wave coffee is generally not my thing (that being said, I actually think Moto Revere makes one of the best cups of coffee in the city... very nice). Third wave I generally only drink Macchiato.

I love me a classic Cappuccino, as in one third coffee, milk, and foam... not third wave...

Overall, I have become more and more indifferent to upscale coffee. I have come to see the honest and no-bs beauty in a cup of ****** diner coffee, its a time and place thing. There's rarely a time or place for me to enjoy a $4 coffee, unless I am at Moto Revere...
 
Brian P said:
An espresso in Italy - at least in rural Italy - is cheap, like 1 euro.
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I love rural Italy, we stayed last fall in Panzanno, just south of Florence. 1 km walk to the village, pastry and coffee was 2.5Euros, in the afternoon same place would serve gellato and tall boys (wives happy, guys happy) 1.5 for gellato, 1 for a beer. Place was heaven.
As much as the Italians take coffee VERY seriously , its unpretentious. Its just coffee.

Want KooKoo?? my son in law asked for a spring loaded pressure sensitive tamper for his espresso machine so the tamper would kick out at excactly the correct weight, like a torque wrench for your tamped coffee grounds for Christmas.
My wife says $189 for a 40mm tamper??? I said geez , we've spent more on stupider ideas, so he got a tamper
 
crankcall said:
I love rural Italy, we stayed last fall in Panzanno, just south of Florence. 1 km walk to the village, pastry and coffee was 2.5Euros, in the afternoon same place would serve gellato and tall boys (wives happy, guys happy) 1.5 for gellato, 1 for a beer. Place was heaven.
As much as the Italians take coffee VERY seriously , its unpretentious. Its just coffee.

Want KooKoo?? my son in law asked for a spring loaded pressure sensitive tamper for his espresso machine so the tamper would kick out at excactly the correct weight, like a torque wrench for your tamped coffee grounds for Christmas.
My wife says $189 for a 40mm tamper??? I said geez , we've spent more on stupider ideas, so he got a tamper
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Damn, should have put the 189 towards a 58 mm machine. That size has been unchanged for quite a while so 58 mm tampers should be good for the rest of your life.
 
MaksTO said:
Starbucks is the bane of coffee imo. I don't think I've ever had worse coffee in my life than every time I hit up a starbucks. Acidity through the roof and burnt to ****...
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Ironically Starbucks is closest to "real" coffee in that they generally follow the guidelines for making a "proper" brew. The fact that many people don't like it, finding it too strong or whatnot, is a symptom of the fact that here in North America we are accustomed to the often served black-water called "coffee" like Tim Hortons serves.

What's funniest is when you travel in the USA (the bane of all things coffee) and make a joke about how weak it is somewhere. They think it's normal even though it's almost universally terrible. When we were in Sturgis last summer we lucked out and found an amazing coffee shop (right next to the campground we were at, so it was convenient, too!) that actually served good coffee, although most of us Canadians were still asking for an extra shot in it to get it as strong as we liked. The ladies running the place couldn't believe that a bunch of us were coming in for 3 or 4 cups (at a pricy $5USD/cup) every morning. Totally worth it.

With only one exception at a little diner in the middle of nowhere on the way there, the entire rest of that week it was just one terrible coffee after another. I actually got one so bad at a restaurant that I literally poured it out of my travel mug on the ground before we even got back on the bikes and hit the road again - it was literally undrinkable, and that was an accomplishment because it actually looked like they had some high end equipment and I ordered a Red Eye hoping to get something strong enough to enjoy. The only thing I could figure went wrong is they were using some bottom of the barrel dredge beans or something.
 
PrivatePilot said:
Ironically Starbucks is closest to "real" coffee in that they generally follow the guidelines for making a "proper" brew. The fact that many people don't like it, finding it too strong or whatnot, is a symptom of the fact that here in North America we are accustomed to the often served black-water called "coffee" like Tim Hortons serves.

What's funniest is when you travel in the USA (the bane of all things coffee) and make a joke about how weak it is somewhere. They think it's normal even though it's almost universally terrible. When we were in Sturgis last summer we lucked out and found an amazing coffee shop (right next to the campground we were at, so it was convenient, too!) that actually served good coffee, although most of us Canadians were still asking for an extra shot in it to get it as strong as we liked. The ladies running the place couldn't believe that a bunch of us were coming in for 3 or 4 cups (at a pricy $5USD/cup) every morning. Totally worth it.

With only one exception at a little diner in the middle of nowhere on the way there, the entire rest of that week it was just one terrible coffee after another. I actually got one so bad at a restaurant that I literally poured it out of my travel mug on the ground before we even got back on the bikes and hit the road again - it was literally undrinkable, and that was an accomplishment because it actually looked like they had some high end equipment and I ordered a Red Eye hoping to get something strong enough to enjoy. The only thing I could figure went wrong is they were using some bottom of the barrel dredge beans or something.
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On a similar note, the downside to the grind and brew coffee makers is that everyone I know that has one has on at least one occasion fired it up and make a pot of very gross liquid. The old grounds were left in, got moldy and then the new grounds were put on top and the pot brewed. Blech. Separate grinder and maker for me. Forces you to at the very least make sure the filter and grounds are fresh.
 
GreyGhost said:
On a similar note, the downside to the grind and brew coffee makers is that everyone I know that has one has on at least one occasion fired it up and make a pot of very gross liquid. The old grounds were left in, got moldy and then the new grounds were put on top and the pot brewed. Blech. Separate grinder and maker for me. Forces you to at the very least make sure the filter and grounds are fresh.
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Our grind and brew will not grind until the hopper has been opened since the last brew cycle - designed intentionally to ensure that doesn't happen. Unless you open the grind hopper and clean it, it just beeps 6 or 8 times and goes back to sleep when you try to brew a pot.

What HAS happened to us however is, due to the thermal carafe design vs a clear glass pot, is that we fail to dump any remaining coffee out of the caraffe from the last brew...since you can't SEE the contents that may or may not be in there. This has 2 possible outcomes:

1/ You pour a cup of the resulting brew and quickly find out with the first sip that you're drinking a lukewarm amalgamation of day old cold coffee with your "fresh" brewed mixed in. Urp.

2/ If you're making a full 12 cup pot but there was still 4 cups left in the carafe that didn't get consumed from the last brewing, it overflows and makes a big mess in your kitchen. I speak from experience.

Doesn't happen often...but has happened. Fair trade off for an otherwise excellent pot of fresh ground coffee the other 99.9% of the time however. ;)
 
PrivatePilot said:
Ironically Starbucks is closest to "real" coffee in that they generally follow the guidelines for making a "proper" brew. The fact that many people don't like it, finding it too strong or whatnot, is a symptom of the fact that here in North America we are accustomed to the often served black-water called "coffee" like Tim Hortons serves.

What's funniest is when you travel in the USA (the bane of all things coffee) and make a joke about how weak it is somewhere. They think it's normal even though it's almost universally terrible. When we were in Sturgis last summer we lucked out and found an amazing coffee shop (right next to the campground we were at, so it was convenient, too!) that actually served good coffee, although most of us Canadians were still asking for an extra shot in it to get it as strong as we liked. The ladies running the place couldn't believe that a bunch of us were coming in for 3 or 4 cups (at a pricy $5USD/cup) every morning. Totally worth it.

With only one exception at a little diner in the middle of nowhere on the way there, the entire rest of that week it was just one terrible coffee after another. I actually got one so bad at a restaurant that I literally poured it out of my travel mug on the ground before we even got back on the bikes and hit the road again - it was literally undrinkable, and that was an accomplishment because it actually looked like they had some high end equipment and I ordered a Red Eye hoping to get something strong enough to enjoy. The only thing I could figure went wrong is they were using some bottom of the barrel dredge beans or something.
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Its not too strong...it’s burnt. I asked a coffee farmer about Starbucks coffee and he was quite blunt about saying that they provide Starbucks with some of the best beans in the world which they then go and ruin.
 
I'm calling shenanigans on your coffee farmer. One of the gals in our social circle is the former VP of Starbucks Canada, . To burn coffee beans in a Starbucks production roaster you'd have to override about 3 computer controls. Its not Jaun Valdez over a wood fire.
 
I'm with jc100. Starbucks coffee tastes burnt. If that's what's coming out of their production roaster, it's because they programmed it that way, and that would explain why they are ALL like that. Computer controls are perfectly capable of consistently making scrap ...
 
Brian P said:
I'm with jc100. Starbucks coffee tastes burnt.
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sounds like a blanket statement. without merit.

on any given day, they have 3 blends, a dark roast, a mild, and a blonde roast.

to paint them all as "burnt" suggests to me that one needs their taste buds readjusted. Drinking pizz Hortons blend will do that to you.
 
SunnY S said:
sounds like a blanket statement. without merit.

on any given day, they have 3 blends, a dark roast, a mild, and a blonde roast.

to paint them all as "burnt" suggests to me that one needs their taste buds readjusted. Drinking pizz Hortons blend will do that to you.
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I've tried all of them, they all taste like crap.

Second cup on the other hand has much better choices.
MosMos is my favorite.
And i like to french press myself some freshly grounded beans.

I just don't like their roast. And it's not the first time i've heard people say that about starbucks so i'm not crazy.
 
Michael0124 said:
Does anyone else hate the new Timmy's lids? Have you ever had one not leak all over?
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I've heard the uproar (wasnt drake complaining?) But have never seen on in real life.

Had a McDonald's coffee this morning. What happened? Much closer to th than it used to be. Not impressed. Also first time ordering mcd coffee on mobile app. You can pick cream, sugar etc as expected, but you can also pick the quantity of "black" (your choices are 0 or 1). Anybody have an idea what that is? Programmer that has never drank/ordered/seen a coffee?
 
crankcall said:
I'm calling shenanigans on your coffee farmer. One of the gals in our social circle is the former VP of Starbucks Canada, . To burn coffee beans in a Starbucks production roaster you'd have to override about 3 computer controls. Its not Jaun Valdez over a wood fire.
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It wasn't just one farmer. I've been to quite a few plantations (some are good hikes to see nature etc too) and ask about it. Over-roasted might be a better term then. Regardless, I don't like Starbucks corporate policies either (opening stores near independent coffee shops to force them out of business etc) so I don't give them my cash. Win win for me.
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