Found in Manchester, UK.
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It was… Once upon a time. Now those who drink coffee largely regard it as brown, burnt water.
Tim Hortons was once a magical place that lives up to the nostalgia fuel marketing that drives the franchise to this day. Every single store has actual bakers on staff who made the pastries, the coffee was genuinely fresh, and it seemed like staff were valued.
Then it got sold to the investment bankers and franchise conglomerates. It’s been min/maxed to death, whittling down every cost to the bare minimum. Things taste like cardboard, and people go because it’s there.
Interestingly enough, when McDonald’s moved into the coffee game, they picked up the bean contract that Tim Hortons held for eons. Tim’s dropped it for cost, and not an insignificant amount of people swapped over to McDonald’s for their coffee.
In 2001, when I left Canada, I had fond memories of Tim Horton’s donuts and other confections. In 2016 when I went back for some paperwork and stayed a month I was absolutely shocked at just how crap Tim Horton’s donuts had become: stale, lifeless, and oversugared/underflavoured. (I’d never liked the coffee so I didn’t try it.)
Something big was lost in that decade and a half.
Fucking capitalists.
The donuts are still sometimes ok if you get there at juuuuuust the right time. But they go stale so fast now. And yeah, some of them seem to be way more sugary than they used to be (some of them hurt my teeth, they have so much sugar).
The coffee though… There’s no magic time where it’s possibly ok.
I only went twice in 2016. Both times were so lousy I decided I’d not bother anymore. Which is too bad. I used to really enjoy Tim Horton’s. 😬
Timbits are so bad now. Encrusted in sugar, and they use some kind of weird oil now.
This can’t be overstated: back when baked goods were freshly baked in every store, the quality was anywhere from better-than-now to Tremendous. And as a side benefit, a lot of people who previously had little or no baking experience learned skills that could last the rest of their lives. The current mass-produced version of their baked goods is universally inferior and degraded the brand in a way that they’ll never recover from.
Nostalgia and wrapping themselves in the flag is their marketing because that’s all they have left, but it’s been wearing thin for years.
McDonald’s for years really stepped up their coffee game.
I’d choose a McDonald’s coffee for $1 over a Starbucks black coffee that’s $3. The hard part is dealing with having to walk into a McDonald’s.
McDonald’s for years really stepped up their coffee game.
McDonalds found themselves in a weird place in the 90’s. Drive-throughs were tremendously successful, to the point where they had massive amounts of real estate that was primarily empty inside. People weren’t eating in as much, and so the dining rooms were empty.
Hence refurbishments and the introduction of McCafe — the whole point of which was to encourage more people to come in and use the dining rooms (and by sticking around, maybe buy more stuff than they would if they just came through the drive through). It’s why they introduced baked goods and mini doughnuts — back in the 80’s the only “baked goods” you’d get were apple pies and boxes of prepackaged mini cookies. Coffee and baked goods were the driver to get people to sit inside the restaurants more often — and if you go to any McDonalds in Canada in an area with a decent number of retirees, I’d say it seems to have worked.
And while I was still working out of a truck a few years ago, the mcD’s coffee went to shit again, so they changed yet again, but for the worse. But for that brief time, McD’s did have the best cheap takeout coffee.
Yep, worked there during the changeover. 2003-04ish. I actually loved working there under the old management, the food was good, quality was the priority. Then the fryers left, replaced by industrial microwaves…but we still baked the muffins. I’m sure even those are frozen/reheated these days.
It is not.
Possibly Canada’s most lucrative coffee, but I don’t know anyone who genuinely likes it. The best review you can coax even out of daily drinkers is “it’s hot and caffeinated.”
Original often tastes like what I imagine a cup of water someone has put their cigarette butts into, found it pretty variable from place to place and time of day, you do sometimes get alright coffee. I tend to drink coffee black but I totally understand why so many people get double doubles at Tims.
Might depend on where you’re from. I’m from a small town and especially the older generations love their “Timmy’s” in a way I’ve not heard any other brand of coffee compete with.
It’ll be interesting to how they’re impacted in 20 years or so now that newer generations have grown up with more options
I’ll take two
So say we all, especially when working outside in the cold and being poor.
hell no
It’s passable but at the bottom. It thrives on people who have been going there every day for decades since it was still good.
Used to be good, now it’s brown sludge. McDonald’s is better
It probably is by market share the nation’s “favorite” though.
That’s because McDonalds bought the coffee roasting company that was formerly used by Tim’s. New McDs coffee is literally original Tim’s coffee.
Tim’s new coffee is awful and hardly worth drinking. Same as their now-reheated-from-frozen garbage donuts.
Yup. But it still has brand recognition and most people order something like a triple triple nowadays so it’s little more than liquid coffee crisp. At that point, the quality of the coffee hardly matters, and Tim Horton’s is way cheaper than Starbucks.
It’s similar, but not the same. You’re correct about the roasting company, though: Mother Parker’s. Drive past them every day on the way to work; smells great in the area.
If it was, people wouldn’t be taking it with double cream, double sugar, to mask the taste.
Good point!
As others have said, Canadian McDonald’s now has the old Tim Hortons coffee, and the new Tim Hortons coffee tastes like they brewed it with water they collected from a puddle in the parking lot.
Presumably McDonald’s has different suppliers in other countries though.
We started going to MCD for coffee a couple years ago. Tried Tims maybe once a year and it still tastes like shit.
McDonald’s has Tim Hortons’ old supplier. They don’t have the same blend, and probably not exactly the same procedure for brewing it. The McDonald’s coffee is much better than Tim’s ever was since at least ~2000 when I first tried it.
Tim’s used to be good, but they are speed running this chain into the ground. Quality is atrocious for every food item and notably the coffee, and their menu has a new desperate “hail Mary” item / category every month.
Tim’s needs to either go bankrupt and get bought out by people that care, or just go away. It has no right to exist with so many better options on the market.
Hell, I’d prefer Starbucks over their crap by now, and Starbucks coffee tastes like burnt cigarette butt water.
And don’t get attached to that Hail Mary product. It’ll be gone before you can remember that it existed.
My wife was quite upset when they dropped vegan sausage options twice in the span of a few years.
I never got cigarette. More notes of a dog’s rancid ball sweat.
People who love coffee brew it themselves. They don’t need to endure long lines and wait for some poorly treated minimum-wage employees to burn it for them.
I suspect coffee preferences, whether someone makes it for them or not, might be down to whether their place of work is conducive for even making coffee. Perhaps there are socioeconomic lines as well that divide people. Do most people feel the need to have their coffee made for them at a fast-food establishment?
I work on the road/various jobsites throughout the day. My first coffee is almost always one I make at home. On a long shift or a cold day, I sometimes want a second coffee, and unfortunately Tim’s often the only option around.
I don’t drink coffee myself but last I heard, Tim’s had their own brand of coffee so hypothetically if somebody likes it, they can still brew it at home.
To clarify, people who love coffee buy fresh roasted beans and grind it themselves for brewing for the best possible flavor.
Buying a kilo of any pre-ground coffee and slapping it into a drip machine is not something people who love coffee would typically do.
To clarify, people who love coffee buy fresh roasted beans and grind it themselves for brewing for the best possible flavor.
You forgot that we worship St. James (Hoffmann).
I didn’t buy fresh roasted beans. I roasted my own.
Of course I’m a lunatic.
I’ve done that, in an apartment with a Behmor. Great coffee, but man what a hassle.
Now I have a subscription to a local place and the coffee’s always roasted within 3 days of delivery.
I had a great place to get roasted-on-premises coffee, but the guy who ran it got me interested in the process, ran a course in how to do it, and then sold the equipment to do it. I’m a nerd. Of course I nerded out and started doing it myself!
McDonald’s coffee probably now. Which seems ridiculous, but, yeah.
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I think they did for a while and then changed to someone else shitty again.
It might have been at one point, but that was before it was bought out by a large corporation, and a bunch of “efficiencies” were implemented which changed suppliers and generally reduced the quality of the coffee and food.
Tim’s is terrible.
I’m guessing their definition of “favourite” is judged by sales, or maybe litres sold? I don’t think anyone prefers Timmies, at least not for a decade or so.
I don’t think there is a regulatory entity policing this issue.
And every real Canadian knows the best coffee in the country comes from small town Esso’s.
7/11 or bust. Seriously though, 7/11s coffee has the best gas station coffee in Canada and it’s not even close.
It’s true. And I’m Canada’s most honest guy
No
I don’t know, but does America REALLY run on Dunkin?
Maybe Massachusetts at most.
I don’t know anyone who prefers Tim’s over other coffees, but I do know that they sell a ton of coffee.
