It’s Roll up the Rim time again at Tim Horton’s in Canada. For those of you who don’t know, this involves rolling up the lip of your cup to see if you win anything – food or prizes. We’ve even had some oh so Canadian commercials surrounding this yearly contest. But, from Darren Barefoot, we hear that winning this year may not be so easy. There are less prizes to go around, and more stores. The official chances to win and prizes per province are available over at xsamplex.

Darren points over to Brian Jones, who has won only once out of 17 cups of coffee. Not the greatest results. Now, I ask, why would you want to drink 17 cups of Tim Horton’s coffee?!? Ew! Tim Horton’s coffee is just about the worst coffee out there!

Now, Darren shows us that we have many less TH’s in BC than in Ontario (where you can find as many Tim Horton’s as you can Starbucks in Vancouver). According to the stats, there are 8395 people per TH in Ontario vs. 21,530 in BC. 

Maybe I didn’t grow up going to Tim Horton’s (actually, never did), so that could be why I don’t like the coffee. But not likely. I didn’t start drinking coffee up until about 3 or so years ago. And I had my choice. But, really, it’s just awful coffee. Really. So, I don’t think I’ll be doing much Rrrrrolling, good odds or bad.

We talked about The Year of Coffee Blog a few days ago and we were asked to send a picture of our coffee. Our Guest Cups are now up, go check them out.
Thanks Lloyd!

Apartment Therapy has put out a little list on what they consider to be the Top 11 Coffee Machines.

They divide the coffee machines into Coffee & Espresso machines. The discussion is pretty mixed on the contents of the list. There is also very little to quantify why these are in the top 11 to begin with. Anyway, here is the list:

Coffee:

* Braun KF400 AroMaster 10-Cup Coffee Maker
* Braun FlavorSelect KF180
* Jasper Morrison Coffee Maker – CT800
* Bialetti Moka Express
* Chemex Coffee Maker
* Aldo Rossi French Press
* BODUM MELIOR French Press Coffee Maker 3 cup

Espresso:

* FrancisFrancis! X1 Espresso Maker
* Bodum Granos Espresso Maker
* La Pavoni Espresso Maker
* Dualit Espresso Maker

Despite my love for coffee, we currently have mostly crappy espresso machines – 3 in total, actually. We definitely plan to upgrade… eventually. :)

What do you think? Have you tried any of these?

Biodegradable cups! Great, no? Except who would have thought that the credit for these would go to the US Navy & Army?

The Biodegradable Coffee Cups were developed so that soldiers could just toss the cups off the boats without harming the marine life. Good idea. But the cups also had to be good enough not to burn hands – the likely delimma in creating the cups in the first place. Oh, and they had to be brown so as not to be visible to enemy spies. Paranoid, perhaps.

Developed by Clovernook Center and International Paper, the cups are what I hope will be taken up by all global coffee houses, especially Starbucks. No news on this front yet, not even a hint. I personally try to use my personal cup whenever possible – it keeps it much hotter and comes guilt free. Well, mostly. I am still buying coffee, after all. :)

Interesting piece over in the comments (I love to read comments!) – Why can’t the soldiers just use the folding cups common to earlier in the century? No trees need be cut down in the first place.

I am quite intrigued by this little blog. If you discounted the pictures and the titles, it would be an interesting blog about what this author is doing. From his airline snack theft to his roadtrips. But you discount the commentary and you get a phographic coffee diary.

This Year of Coffee Blog is a chornology of each days’ coffee intake in picture format. No review of said coffee. Just pictures. But oh my, is that a lot of coffee! Not just one per day either! Some are obviously from home, some from Starbucks, and even some from Kristy Kreme.

Now, I wish I had thought of this. What a good way to write off my coffee intake and remove the guilt of wanting to buy my coffee!

Link via Roland Tanglao. Thanks!

So, I used my coupon today that I received for sending in a complaint to Starbucks (see here for my story). And, of course, with a coupon for ANY free drink, I decided to exploit it and go for an expensive drink. I had to balance out calories, but I did get something quite bad for me anyway. Not like I do it often.

Here is what I had:

Venti quattro Caramel Macchiato

What is this? The tallest Starbucks beverage. 4 shots of espresso. Vanilla syrup. Caramel topping.

The cost: $5.99CAD – FREE!!

I am feeling pretty good right now. Oh yes.

Just goes to show you that complaining is a good thing. a)I got something free for a valid complaint, and b)The manager of this Starbucks got a note re: priming the mugs and throwing out old coffee!

So, complaints are not just something you blog about. Companies that prize themselves on service above all (after all, Starbucks is Starbucks for its atmosphere not its coffee) will take you seriously if you talk to them. And make you happy-ish by giving you something.

Starbucks
Arieanna gives it ** (2/4 stars)

I know it’s not needed, but it was fun to write. Despite my low review, I do tend to visit Starbucks about once a week. Around my office we have 3 choices: Starbucks, Artigiano, and Moonpennies – which serves JJ Bean. I have never been lucky enough to have a good cup of coffee at Artigiano (although I hear they can happen), so I’ve always gone to Starbucks. The handiness of the card is my biggest turn on. I love being able to just put some cash onto the card and then walk there without my purse. So handy. I only today found out about JJ Bean being at Moonpennies, so may try there every once and a while, but I still depend on Starbucks for anything more fancy than a drip coffee. Unfortunately.

Now, a little story. A couple of weeks back I had the world’s worse cup of coffee at Starbucks. So bad. Worse than Tim Horton’s bad. I drank it, yes (hey, I need all the caffeine I can get with the meds I am on!), but oh my goodness. So bad. And I got fed up with them not priming my fancy mug. So I complained online. And today in the mail arrives 2 vouchers for ANY starbucks beverage. Well, we all know I will not be trying Chantico again (see here), but I am going to concoct for myself the most expensive beverage I can think of. Grande, double shot, long, soy, peppermint, Caramel Macchiato. Or something equally as complicated. Oh yes.

So my summary, mediocre coffee. But not so bad service.
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