Now I Might Have to Try Mickey D’s Espresso
July 8, 2009 by Marye Audet
Filed under Coffee News
I swore it would not happen. I really hate McDonalds. It is not my kind of place. It is not a happy place. Not for me, anyway. If I am going to do fast food (RARE!) then a quick run by Whataburger or Sonic is my choice.
But I just read that the roaster supplying McDonalds with their espresso coffee blend is Distant Lands in Tyler, Texas. Distant Lands is the same eco-friendly roaster that is supplying Panera. The beans are not organic but I believe that they are Fair Trade coffee beans.
Anyway, I like Panera coffee. That means that more than likely I will like McDonald’c coffee… and the thought scares me. You can read more about that here in the Chicago Tribune.
The Bible, in Proverbs, talks about things that the earth can’t hold up under. Things that are just too weird. Well..this may be one of them.
McDonald’s can’t get environmentally concerned and serve good coffee, that’s like Sonny Bryans BBQ place starting to serve only vegetarian meals. It is the end of the world as we know it!
It could add a whole new Happy Meal concept though. A little Happy Meal bag with a couple of biscotti, a macchiato, and maybe a section of the New York Times? It could work!
If McDonald’s REALLY wanted to sell a lot of coffee they would turn to the brilliant, albeit criminal, minds in Malaysia.
Sometimes I know I have missed my calling and should be in marketing somewhere. Other times I know that I took way too many hallucinogenics as a teenager in the 70s and should probably be listening to Black Sabbath at 78 speed. You decide which it is tonight..I am going to bed. 
Image:SXC
Well if you do actually try it, I’d like to read the review. When I read about where they get their coffee beans, I was surprised too, not just because it’s eco-friendly/fair trade but also because they don’t advertise that at all.
I know, Mike..it seems that they would advertise it!
Well, then.
Go ahead and try it. But I advise just getting a shot. The drinks themselves are made for the most part by people who don’t understand espresso, or gourmet coffee drinks. At one point, they decided to have someone dedicated and trained to only do the coffee drinks, but it wasn’t cost effective. Thusly, nasty mochas, lattes that are way to sweet, and inconsistancies in the strength of them, (because the machines are automated, but become uncalibrated VERY quickly so you might get a drink that quickly becomes half a cup of latte because it was made too frothy)
All that to say, a straight espresso shot, add your own cream is yummy.
The rest? It’s a crap shoot.
I figured as much. I just can’t figure out why they wouldnt let people know that they were using such a great coffee? I am thinking about calling the roaster and seeng if I can do a photoshoot there..i is only about 1 1/2 hours away.
Do it! I’d love to see the pics. I don’t know, either, why they wouldn’t let people know that. *I* didn’t know that, and I was the barista at our local McD’s for a short period of time. They had this lovely little saying “It’s all about the bean” – so you would think they would go a little further, especially since apparently the bean really is all that!