- As part of an ongoing taste test series, INSIDER tried four different fast food restaurants' hot coffee. We tried Chick-fil-A, Wendy's, McDonald's, and Dunkin' Donuts.
- Wendy's, a relative newcomer to the breakfast game, was our favorite.
- All four are a solid option though, if you're looking for a cheap caffeine jolt.
Here at INSIDER, we've done our fair share of taste tests, including fried chicken, French fries, and chocolate chip cookies. Today, we add fast food coffee to the list.
We sampled:
- McDonald's
- Chick-fil-A
- Wendy's
- Dunkin' Donuts
To make the taste test as scientific as possible, we ordered each coffee black (no milk or sugar), and added the same amount of Land O'Lakes half and half to each later.
Keep scrolling to see which coffee we might add to our daily routine.
To start my journey, I headed over to Chick-fil-A. I've never had their hot coffee, but their iced coffee is definitely on point, so I was excited to try the hot version.
Chick-fil-A's coffee was the most expensive — by just a penny. It cost $2.09 for a small coffee.
According to their website, their "Medium-roast coffee contain[s] only hand-picked certified 100% Colombian beans." They serve Thrive Farmers coffee, whom they partnered with in 2014, allegedly making it the "QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) industry's first-ever specialty-grade coffee."
The press release states that a portion of the revenue from each cup sold goes directly to Thrive's network of farmers in Central America, which made me feel good about drinking it.
I trekked next door to Dunkin' Donuts. It looked significantly smaller than Chick-fil-A's small size. The sleeve was also designed for a larger coffee.
Dunkin' Donuts' small coffee came in at $2.08, making it the second-most expensive coffee of the four.
They offer three different blends: Original, Dark Roast, and Dunkin Decaf. I opted for Original. The Dunkin' website suggests pairing the Original Roast with an Old Fashioned doughnut, because the "notes of nutmeg in our Old Fashioned donut pair beautifully with [the] light fruity notes in our Original Blend." Sadly, no doughnuts for me this morning.
Next stop: the McDonald's down the street. Since the brand is famous for its McCafé, I figured this might be the best of the bunch.
McDonald's has been selling coffee for 70 years, but McCafé, the coffee and breakfast branch, was only founded in 1993. While there are stand-alone McCafé's, every McDonald's sells breakfast and coffee all day long, as of 2016.
The McDonald's coffee smelled the best — it had a nutty aroma. It also only cost a dollar.
According to their website, McDonald's coffee is "Made with 100% Arabica beans."
Finally, I stopped at Wendy's, which seems to fly under the radar as a seller of coffee and breakfast.
Wendy's has only been serving breakfast for around five years, which explains why I hadn't heard of it.
The Wendy's coffee was by far the largest size, and the cheapest — it was just 99 cents. The Wendy's website states that it's made from "100% Arabica beans from around the world, medium-roasted to bring out all the best flavors."
It smelled a bit burnt, but not altogether unpleasant. It was also the hottest by far — the cup is made with a built-in sleeve, so that might have helped the heat stay trapped inside.
Now that I had all four coffees, it was time to test them out. Navigating the crowded streets of NYC with four piping hot coffees proved to be the first challenge.
Since black coffee really isn't my thing, I decided to add the same amount of half and half to each cup.
I enlisted some help from my co-workers, and we got to drinking. First up, we tried Dunkin' Donuts — a place known for their "Box O' Joe."
The smell was pretty bland, and when we tasted it, so was the coffee. Especially annoying considering it was the smallest and most expensive cup of the bunch.
While it definitely didn't taste bad, it also didn't taste great. It was a bit bitter, and the aftertaste lingered after I was finished with it. Maybe that's why Dunkin' Donuts is known for their flavor syrups and specialty drinks — it masks the blandness of their plain black coffee.
While I love Dunkin' Donuts' iced coffee with milk and sugar, their plain black coffee just wasn't my favorite.
Plus, the lid was annoying. By the time I had taken a few steps on the sidewalk, the coffee had already spilled all over it.
Next, we sipped on some Chick-fil-A.
We could really taste the fact that this coffee was made from quality beans — it just had a richer taste than the other ones. It was on the naturally sweeter side, which I appreciated, but wasn't completely masked by the half and half taste. We detected a hint of cocoa, and also a citrusy note — this cup wouldn't have been out of place at a hipster coffee shop.
It also was the least watery of all the cups we tried, making it worth the $2.09 price tag, in my opinion.
Our third coffee was from McDonald's.
This cup was the most watery coffee we tried, and simply tasted a little weak.
While it smelled the richest to us, we weren't as enamored by the taste. It was definitely the blandest of the four, but it also only cost a dollar. If you're not really a fan of how coffee tastes, but simply looking for a caffeine fix, this is a solid pick.
And our favorite? Wendy's! Wendy's had the boldest flavor, and was both the cheapest and the largest.
You can see in the line-up that the Wendy's cup was significantly larger than the other three, despite being the cheapest. It cost only 99 cents.
The Wendy's coffee definitely had the boldest flavor — if you like strong coffee, this is the drink for you. It definitely leaned towards the bitter side, but it's nothing that a little bit of sugar wouldn't fix you prefer your coffee sweet.
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