Better late than never

If you're one of the few who knew I was going to start doing this, congratulations as your wait is now validated. Might as well get started.

McDonald's.

That name either fills your desires with hunger or your heart with contempt. Yes, truly Mcd's is the Wal*Mart of the fast food world (although Burger King, you still have the creepier mascot). Having worked for this paragon of quick eating I could go on and on with stories of my tenure there, but that's not what this blog's about, this is about drinks especially in this case, the McCafe. Yes, Mcd's has joined the ranks of the coffeehouse in an attempt to bring more revenue formerly lost to Starbucks, Seattle's Best, etc... The aim is to appeal to the fancy coffee lover in all of us without beating us over the head with our own wallets, but is it any good?

The answer is a resounding, kinda. Originating in France, one would assume the concept of the McCafe couldn't possibly fail, and with a few years to perfect the process it might not, but as it stands they're nowhere near breaking the stranglehold on fancy coffees held by the mighty Northwest franchises and I have a fairly good guess the main problem. Mcd's employees lack the hours of training in creating a delicious coffee or espresso that the major chains have. If I had to guess, they just threw the machines and ingredients in the stores and gave the managers 5 minutes of training, who then passed on their knowledge in less than 2 minutes to anyone lacking anything else to do and then it was up to those people to train everyone else.

All examples below are from one type of McCafe, Mocha as I assume this is the most popular (and my favorite) fancy coffee flavor. I've tried both the hot and iced forms multiple times and found the same issues with all of them regardless of whether it's cold or hot.

Flavor: The McCafe has all the ingredients to be quite delicious, it's just that in my experiences the flavors were poorly mixed together if they were mixed at all. This leads to a chocolate explosion with a pool of syrup sitting at the bottom, but almost nothing but straight coffee taste throughout the rest of the drink.

Display: The McCafe comes in a nice looking cup for the hot variety and a clear cup for the iced. These cups are similar to any other place you can get coffees and therefore don't matter, however Mcd's loses points on display for having lids which crush the whipped cream and chocolate which is placed on top of the drinks during preparation.

Value: The cost of a McCafe is significantly less than that of a comparable coffeehouse drink, however the overall quality is equally less than their counterpart's. Currently I say that you definitely get what you pay for, but given some time to grow accustomed to the new feature, we may have a new destination spot for a great latte.