Everyone has heard of Starbucks and Dunkin’ if you live in America. But the debate has always been: which is better? Which do you go to every morning before you start your day? What makes one place have better coffee than the other? How do we decide which one it is? Well, that’s what we are here to debunk.
We will begin with Dunkin’. Their selection of coffee flavors is not very wide, and they tend to focus more on the more basic flavors. They mainly focus on the basics without all the glitz and glam. This allows those who are indecisive or get overwhelmed with large menus to not be so worried. They also have good prices for what you are getting, a medium iced coffee is about $1.89 for a 24 oz. cup. But the problem is that when you go, the coffee never tastes the same. You can order two of the same thing and they will taste completely different. Although they do not go overboard on the ice (leaving you with a fair amount being coffee) they do tend to be watered down. This makes things very confusing because of the limited amount of ice.
Moving onto Starbucks! Although well-known and appearing to be extremely popular, is their iced coffee better? Starbucks provides a huge variety of coffee add-ins and flavors. You can literally put anything you want into a coffee from here. They have a very wide variety of seasonal flavors as well to keep you on the edge of your seat, waiting for the next time it will be coming back. But it costs about $2.10 for a medium which is only 16 oz. They also fill the cup with ice before adding the coffee, causing you to get even less coffee in your cup. They also have gotten rid of plastic straws, which allows you to save the environment. There are also rewards if you bring your own reusable cup.
When it comes to comparing the two, Dunkin’ is cheaper by 21 cents which can add up if you plan to get coffee every day before work or class. Dunkin’ also provides 8 more ounces for their medium compared to Starbucks. But Starbucks has a much larger variety when it comes to what you want in your coffee, especially if you don’t want your coffee to taste like coffee. Starbucks also doesn’t have that watered-down taste, where Dunkin’s does, and they allow you to save the environment a little bit every day.
Here’s my suggestion: if you want a cheap, classic coffee flavor where you won’t get anxious looking at the menu, I suggest Dunkin’.
But if you want something that is extremely customizable and more eco-friendly, I would go with Starbucks. They are also a good place to go if you go every once in a while and don’t need coffee to function every day.
So is one better than the other? Or do they just have pros and cons in different ways? You decide.