Coffee Clarifications: Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts

Many people do not understand that there are profound differences between coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks. Due to aggravation with both places, I will be clarifying the key differences and why both places are absolutely terrible.

Dunkin Donuts is a coffee and doughnut shop. Starbucks is a coffee and pastry shop. Both coffees are sub-par, compared to the smaller, hole-in-the-wall coffee shops that I have been to myself. However, both Starbucks and Dunkin’ come to mind when looking for convenient coffee.

If you are looking for stronger, bitter, more burned tasting coffee, or a smaller variety of caffeinated beverages, Starbucks is the place to go.

If you are looking for weaker, fresher coffee with more flavor options, Dunkin’ Donuts is the place to go.

Now, I have extensive coffee making experience. I can make pretty much any coffee anyone can order if I have the machines available. I can walk someone through a step-by-step process of how to make lattes, Macchiatos, Americanos, regular coffees, and much more.

Though for some reason, whenever I walk into Starbucks and ask for something off-menu, they look at me like I’m crazy. Starbucks employees are only taught how to make the drinks they carry on their menu. They do not know how to make coffees, they know how to make Starbucks drinks.

When I’d walked into a Starbucks recently, I asked for a drink. I had ordered a Peppermint Mocha Macchiato with less peppermint, and the employees looked at me like I had begun to speak a different language.

“We just have the peppermint mocha, it’s a mocha beverage,” they told me. I laughed. “The whole drink is not simply chocolate unless you are asking for a hot chocolate,” I told them.

I then proceeded to walk this Starbucks employee on how to make this beverage.

“It’s like a Caramel Macchiatoa?| only with Peppermint Mocha instead of Caramel.”

The end result, the woman behind the counter handed me 2 espresso shots with at least 3 pumps of each Peppermint, Mocha, and Caramel. I took a sip, handed it back to them, and left.

For those of you who don’t know, I do work at Dunkin Donuts. Every coffee beverage is extremely simple to make, and only sometimes time-consuming. Employees there will ask a variety of questions to better clarify what each person is looking for.

“Did you want that hot or iced?”

“Did you want the sweet or the unsweet flavor?”

“Whipped cream on that?”

Neither place is really that great. Dunkin’ has more variety and understanding of the more high-maintenance customers. Starbucks has better caffeine content.

Honestly, everyone should just reach out to KSI DarkxAngel because she lives in Jamaica and there’s some pretty tasty coffee beans over there.