When it comes to sipping a good cup of coffee on an early morning, in the evening while walking in a park or on a cold winter day only 2 things come to mind. Yes, you guessed it right, we are talking about Tim Hortons and Starbucks.
Coffee is not just any beverage but is a survival drink for many. These two brands have been coffee icons and these names have replaced the word ‘Coffee’. With a wide variety of beverages and food items, these have been an ideal spot for not just leisure but also for meetings.
These spots are also being used as personal office spots where people can come and work and enjoy their favourite coffee paired up with a snack.
History of Tim Hortons
Tim Hortons has been serving coffee, Doughnuts, and other fast-food items since 1964. They opened their first door at Hamilton, Ontario to serve their iconic Original Blend coffees, Double-Double coffees, Doughnuts and Timbits. These have been their specialty ever since.
It is Canada’s largest coffee chain which caters almost all parts of Canada, serving up to 5 million cups of coffee a day. On average almost every Canadian visits Tim Hortons once a month.
History of Starbucks
Starbucks originated in Seattle in 1971. When they opened their gates to the world, offering freshly roasted coffee beans, tea and spices from around the world for the customers to take home. There was no scope of coffee in the story. However, his first experience at Milan’s coffeehouse inspired him to have green aprons in Starbucks instead of brown.
In 1987, the year marked the beginning of a new chapter where Starbucks was now a coffeehouse. And the rest is history, it has been a pioneer in coffee making, be it the variety of coffees or its in-house small little merchandise.
Both these brands also offer a small range of collectibles like mugs, flasks and bottles with brand logos or other customized prints like Disney, Star Wars etc. These are very popular amongst teenagers.
What to order from Tim Hortons (popular items)
Tim Hortons’ beverage menu has been classified into two major sections that are hot drinks and cold drinks. All the beverages are categorized under these. Since coffee is an acquired taste and everyone wants his/her coffee, Tim Hortons is generous to provide multiple customizations as per taste.
The most popular drinks are Double Double, which is nothing but an original blend with two creams and two sugar. It is everyone’s go-to drink and the rest depends upon customization and, French Vanilla. Both of these drinks are highly recommended.
Other popular options in hot drinks are original blend coffee, decaf coffee, steep tea, hot chocolate and the vintage evergreen cappuccino and latte. There are many options in cold beverages too for those sunny days such as Iced Capp which comes with multiple flavour options along with the signature Iced Coffee. There are various other options of coolers other than coffee.
There are seasonal drinks around the festive season which are only available for some part of the year, such as Pumpkin Spice Latte, Pumpkin Spices Iced Capp which are only available in Fall.
Popular items from Starbucks
Starbucks offers a large variety of drinks ranging from Hot drinks, Hot Teas, Hot Coffees, Frappuccino, Cold Coffees Iced Tea and Cold Drinks. There are ample customizations that are available in these varieties of drinks ranging from the sweetness to the flavours.
The culture of writing names on the cup and announcing it once the order is ready has been one of the reasons people enjoy Starbucks along with their premium coffee.
Everyone has their own taste of their Starbucks cup, some go for their regular drinks such as a cappuccino or latts. While some are on the experimental side and love to try new drinks along with the recommendation of the helpful baristas who always suggest new drinks as well as drinks suit your liking. Frappuccino is their signature drink; an explosion of flavours which is served with whipped cream as a customizable option.
They serve seasonal drinks which are available during the festive season only for a part of the year. These include drinks such as Hot Chocolate, Pumpkin Spice Latte and Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew which are available around Fall.
Other than Hot beverages, both these brands offer a number of summer coolers ranging from lemonades and strawberry drinks to guava, passionfruit and pineapple matcha drinks.
People’s Review - Which is better? Starbuck or Tims?
People have contrasting opinions about everything. When it comes to coffee, everyone has their specific taste and has different customizations which suit their survival juice.
We scraped online customer reviews from several Starbucks and Tim Hortons and found the following
Tim Hortons is preferred by people for
- their morning coffee
- they specially take their coffee from the drive-through, which is the most convenient for them
- the setup is fast and accurate
- and people enjoy their coffees along with some sides while driving to their respective work locations.
People admire their quality and service. They prefer having Steep tea, Double-Double, Hot chocolate, French Vanilla and so on.
People prefer Starbucks for its service and staff and the warm and welcoming ambience. People receive their coffees with their names written on them. They have their easy replace policy if the drink is not up to the mark.
People prefer having customized drinks, lattes, cappuccinos and the recommended drinks from the baristas serving them. The side options like pies and cakes are very popular too.
Which has the better PSL (pumpkin spice latte)?
Some people compare the common drinks like Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks and Tim Hortons. Starbucks may be the founding father of the PSL, but Timmies is Canada’s first love, so both are definitely strong contenders.
What was discovered is that while one of them is creamier, the other has a more authentic pumpkin spice taste. As for the presentation, Starbucks is superior. Both beverages come with whipped topping, but Starbucks lays it on with a little more precision than Tim Hortons.
They also sprinkle some cinnamon on top which adds an extra element of flavour. While Tim Hortons has some more economical options, Starbucks offers more premium tastes.
Closing Thoughts
As mentioned before, this research was done by scraping data ParseHub, a free web scraping tool.
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