I used to love Dunkin' Donuts coffee. However, ever since they started offering those flavor shots with the coffee, the quality and taste seems different and not as good. Does anyone know if they changed their blend because it seems weaker and more watery.
Thoughts???
Jacey
Aug 06, 2006 11:16PM
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I don't think that they changed the blend. I've noticed over the years that the quality and consistency of the coffee varies from place to place. The nice thing about living in the city is that there are quite a few Dunkin Doughnuts to choose from. I once recall a Dunkin Doughnuts employee in the Oak Lawn/Bridgeview area reusing the coffee grounds! That was my last time at that location.
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You don't have to live in the city to have quite a few DD shops. I live in a city of 60,000 people and we have 8 DD locations. I stopped visiting DD as soon as they stopped making the donuts in the stores. Now they truck the donuts in from some location that is making donuts for a region.
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Ignorance my friend. I work in a DD that makes the donuts right in the back. We supply 2 of our other stores, but they are made fresh, twice daily.
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Yes--they've changed the beans they're using the revamped their coffee overall. DD is on an agressive marketing strategy to cut into Starbuck's customer base by offering a higher-quality brew that will appeal to coffee snobs. They brought in a coffee expert to totally revamp their brew and they're taking the focus off the pastry offerings (which have never been known for that) and have been churning out more and more coffee-based products. I believe you can get drinks there without the nasty flavorshots--I find you have to go very conservative when asking for milk & sugar. But I have never heard of or seen reused coffee grounds or anything suspect--you might want to report that or just stick to antoher shop.
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/bizfina...
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I've always considered Dunk's to be rather watery and weak, although at times, this is exactly the type of coffee I am craving. I completely agree that much of the variation occurs between stores. If you've always been going to the same store, then I really don't get it.
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dd's coffee smells great, but it has no taste.
JMHO
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I USED to go buy my coffee beans in DD . . . but that was BS (Before Starbucks)!
TT
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I'll agree with the weaker and watery comment. Some of the DDs in DC have been trying to "upscale" their image, I guess to get rid of their truckstop gestalt in favor of a more Starbucks vibe. Not sure if it works, but I won't be back.
Although Krispy Kreme seems to be crashing and burning from overexpansion, their plain coffee is excellent. Not watery like DD and not burnt like Starbucks.
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Dunky's coffee truly does differ from location to location...since it is a franchise this is somewhat to be expected. I order my coffee differently depending upon whether I go to the one near my home or the one near my office. One of them offers up a much weaker brew than the other.
Also, there is still a dunky's location in my town that makes their donuts on-site... so much better than those that ship them in. (for when I am being "bad" and want a donut!)
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When DD developed its initial coffee strategy over a decade and a half ago, it focused on the kind of medium roasted coffee that New Englanders favor (given that DD is New England based), with the beloved former Coffee Connection (bought ought by Starbucks) as the exemplar. As Starbucks as increased its influence, more customers have developed a love for darker roasts, and DD has had to adjust but seems to struggle a bit. There are gazillions of people who strongly prefer medium-roasted coffee to dark-roasted, and they have been the base that has made DD grow.
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Your explanation that DD has adjusted the flavor from its original blend rings true to me. I have noticed that the last year, perhaps longer, that I do not get the same taste or satisfaction from a cup of DD. This applies to several DDs in my Long Island area. The flavor has been consistent between them over the most recent tries which leads me to believe that either the type of coffee bean plant has changed due to the need to harvest greater quantities or over harvesting of the original source or as you surmised, a marketing move to nudge the taste a touch closer to the darker variety selling hand over fist in the Starbucks market segment. Whatever the case I am profoundly disappointed; it seems whenever there is a classic, some fools come along to compromise it or eradicate it.
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DD is good for iced coffee in the morning. Their French Vanilla is pretty tasty.
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DD used to be (I'm going back a couple of decades, way before StarbucksNation) a mild mellow coffee, sort of like coffee ice cream heated up. It was a good example of what europeans and euro-weenies derided as insipid American coffee. What can I say, I and many others, loved it. Somebody else posted that it smells great but tastes bad... it used to taste like that smell.
For a while, about ten years ago, there were good DD locations and bad, which I assume was due to too fast expansion and the inability to control quality. More recently, its been uniformly acrid at every DD I've been to- all over NJ and NYC. So much so that I have given up and only get coffee to go from delis, bakeries, carts, etc. I bet they are buying cheaper beans... the ones with more bitter clunkers (not the technical term) to the pound. Too bad.
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