Timmy's: Canada's Boring Sweetheart

I cringe when I think about all the times some Canadian patriot has played host to American acquaintances, and has said, "Well, geez buddy. You're in Canada, so we just gotta go to Timmy's and get a coffee. It's our national specialty, eh?" *shudder*

With Tim Hortons being the symbol of Canadian culture that it supposedly is, it's no wonder that Canada is seen as the vanilla sponge-cake of the world. Contrary to world belief (i.e. American belief), Canada is not bland or tasteless. It's people are not just satisfactory, yet ultimately unmemorable. Tim Hortons coffee, on the other hand, is all of these things.

The three friends who came to the party at 6 when it started
at 8. They each had a Mike's hard lemonade,
and left at 9 because they all had curfew.

I had a pretty good discussion with a buddy of mine the other day about the taste of Tim Hortons "coffee". While you (M.L.L.) are cringing at my misuse of quotation marks, let me explain. Tim Hortons has no right to call their "coffee" coffee. While it is hot, and liquid, that's where the similarities stop. Tim Hortons' hot breakfast beverage doesn't smell or taste like coffee, so why is everyone calling it coffee?

From now on, Tim Hortons "coffee" will be called "hot morning beverage" or "hot breakfast beverage". The debate is ongoing.

Unlike McDonalds' coffee, which is rich, bold, and generally resembles coffee, Tim's has somehow become Canada's darling coffee franchise all while pumping out a pretty inferior product. I guess that's how marketing works though: show kids playing hockey, show hockey mom in the stands cheering the Cornwall Whatever's, and then show the whole family going to Tim's afterwards for celebration hot-morning-beverages. That's all it takes in this country. *sigh... Oh, Canada.

Tim Hortons' food, while not as horribly overhyped as their coffee, is equally as boring. Their "Sausage Breakfast Sandwich on an English Muffin" (pfff, nice name), is about as interesting as Ben Stein voicing the Twilight audiobook. Also, they should really put a disclaimer on these sandwiches that say, "Assembly Required".  The egg is on the left, the unmelted slice of cheese is on the right, and the sausage could be anywhere.

This picture was taken after I reassembled it. The cheese is finally
melting, but that's just because I stored it in my pants until I ate it.

Unlike McDonalds' breakfast sandwich, which slaps you in the face with greasy, fatty flavour, Tim's is about half as greasy and about a quarter as tasty. I'd rather take the extra grams of fat in exchange for something that makes me go, "Oh God, I should get another one".

The hashbrown patty I ate today is the second version of the Tim Hortons hashbrowns. The original Timmy's hash was replaced a few months, maybe a year ago, because it sucked. Originally, Tim's tried to move in a different direction than McDonalds by offering a "homestyle, good ol' fashioned, just like your Canadian granny used to make 'em" hashbrown. Too bad that Granny sucks and so do her hashbrowns. A few months ago Tim's caved, and are now offering hashbrowns that are a DIRECT RIPOFF of the McDonalds' hash. They might even get them from the same company for all I know, and Tim's still manages to make them inferior to McDonalds'.

Overall, the breakfast sucked, but not as much as waiting 25 minutes in line, like you have to do every time you go to any Tim's, anywhere. I'm getting really tired of Tim's being the reigning champion in the Canadian made breakfast industry. I'm sick of their pathetic tear-jerker or downright unfunny commercials, but most of all, I'm sick of the equation that people make between being Canadian and loving Tim Hortons.

Robin's Donuts is just as Canadian as Tim's ever has or ever will be. I didn't grow up on TimBits, I grew up on Robin's eggs. Sure, Robin's coffee tastes like it's been brewed with burning paper, but it still TASTES LIKE SOMETHING, dammit! I'm really hoping for the industry to even itself out, and I'm looking forward to Robin's Donuts getting back in the game.

For now though, if I'm gonna go evil, I'm going for the evil I know. I'll stick with McDonalds until this country gets over it's infatuation, bordering on obsession, with Tim Horton's, and we realize that it's not a Canadian landmark, or a symbol of who we are as a nation.

We'll see it for what it is: a coffee place with crappy coffee.