Hot Coffee:
1)Starbucks, 2)Dunkin Donuts, 3)McDonalds.
Iced Coffee:
1)McDonalds, 2)Dunkin Donuts, 3)Starbucks.

TC the Terrible—the hyatt has great coffee, it brews by the cup. starbucks sucks!!! no dunkin doughnuts in my area, so i cant say anyhting about that, and 7-11 has only the flavored coffee made from a powder. anyway, starbucks uses the worst beans, they stores do not roast them so since they are preroasted the beans have lost a lot of flavor, they NEVER clean out their equipment so there is always a buildup of oils, they rush to get people out the door so the water burner is always on which burns the coffee…..so what is the result???? burnt, bitter coffee…a steal at only $4 a cup. you know, they rarely sell plain coffee…the vast majority of their drinks have milk and flavor shots and all kinds of other crap in them to mask the true flavor (burnt and bitter) of the coffee. i think they intentionally sell crappy coffee so people load it up with these extras that the charge $$$ for. i prefer just to make my own coffee an espresso i use kona, i like the kona quite a bit. i would like to get a countertop roaster and roast my own beans, but then that would be just too much crap on my countertop.

Years ago one of the sergeants that worked for me used to make outstanding coffee when we were in the field. We had one of those 42 cup coffee urns in our command tent and he would just keep adding fresh grounds to the filter for each new pot. When the grounds reache the top of the filter he’d dump them out and start the process over.

That was the best coffee ever.

As far as chains go KassyK is right. Dunkin’ rules.

McD’s coffee tastes like it was brewed in an ashtray.

Beave- good point on the wireless. Such an annoying and insulting situation. Wireless should be free at cafes.

Yeah 7-11 and Exxon are the best. You can add all the extras pumps you want and not be charged for every little thing. Additionally, the service at Starbucks sucks! I had to straight chimp-out on this sorry ass barista the other day! She gave me the wrong thing, and tried to get all belligerent with me like I was the asshole. I had to tell her “Your only responsibility is to make coffee all day and you can’t even do that right, just kill yourself now!” That ended that argument. And I got two coupons for free coffee. Plus their wireless isn’t even free!

ditto on dunkin donuts. for the truly sophisticated froo froo palate you have to go with illa coffee.

Also– you are right about McD’s and 7-11. These places have improved their coffee and if I have to go somewhere while I am on the road I generally go to these places.

Um, Dunkin Donuts has the best coffee.

Starbucks BLOWS. I jumped ship with them a while ago. Any true coffee lover goes to a local coffee shop that roasts their own beans themselves or has a supplier that provides good beans. Usually these places have the best atmosphere as well.

I think basically Starbucks was the “mcdonaldization” of these types of local, hip places, just like mcdonalds spread the local malt shop across the country. But just like mcdonalds, the franchise is never as good as the original genuine issue it tries to emulate.

Since Starbucks has become so pervasive, the service blows and the people there are annoying and lame (often). Not sure if it was always this way, but I am done going there.