With midterms looming on the horizon, it’s no secret that much of the Pine View high school population begins to consume half their body weight in coffee. As a staff full of coffee enthusiasts, The Torch has decided to sample various local coffee shops in hopes of finding the best brew.
Joined by the following coffee connoisseurs, The Torch has rated vanilla lattes (the most requested caffeinated beverage on press nights) from: Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, Bistro By the Bay, The Clever Cup Coffee Shop and Shell gas station. Each of the tasters went through a blind taste test in which they were given coffees unknown to them, and in the end the tasters picked their favorite of the bunch.
The Tasters:
Cate Alvaro
Park Dietz
Manny Rea
Haleigh Brown
Zach Bright
Riley Board
Annie Hassan
The Tasters
Dunkin’ Donuts (A)
There has long been a feud between Dunkin’ and Starbucks as the official drink of Torch press nights. This year, Dunkin’ has been selected as the coffee of choice.
“It’s really thin, but creamy looking?”
Initial thoughts:
Haleigh – “It’s really thin… but really creamy looking?”
Cate – “It smells gross… This is from Dunkin’!”
Park – “It smells pretty sweet, like a little extra sweetener”
Zach – “It smells too sweet…”
Riley is disappointed.
Tasting:
Park – [Loudly coughing]
Zach – “It tastes really weak.”
Cate – “Ew!”
Haleigh – “It’s really watery. There’s like no flavor… It’s so weak. I need the caffeine.”
Annie – “I expected much more. It’s bean water with sugar.”
General thoughts:
Overall, the coffee earned a rating of 3 out of 10, with Park independently giving it a 6 out of 10.
In order to add a regional flavor, we picked a local coffee shop near school.
Cheers!
Initial thoughts:
Park – “It smells darker.”
Cate – “This is from Shell. This is from the gas station.”
Riley – “Yeah, it’s definitely darker.”
Cate – “It smells gross.”
Tasting:
Haleigh – “This is Starbucks. This is definitely Starbucks.”
Cate – “Yeah this is Starbucks. It’s not that amazing but it’s not as bad as the last one.”
Riley – “You know how Starbucks kind of has those specialized, specific recipes? This has that specific recipe feel.”
Haleigh – “I’ve had this coffee before, I know that for a fact.”
Annie – “I feel like I’m cheating on Dunkin’ Donuts.”
Riley – “It’s a stronger flavor, but it’s not necessarily good. It’s like, a better brew”
“This is Starbucks. This is definitely Starbucks.”
“Yeah this is Starbucks.”
General Thoughts:
The general consensus was an average rating of 5 out of 10.
It’s a five.
Shell Gas Station (C)
A wildcard pick, Shell acts as an underdog coffee for those who need a quick caffeine boost on the go.
Initial thoughts:
Haleigh – “This is hazelnut… It smells nutty.”
Cate – “It smells good! I like the smell.”
Riley – “It smells like chocolate.”
Annie – “It smells like grass.”
Zach – “This… this does not smell like grass, Annie. Have you smelled grass?”
Tasting:
Haleigh – “It’s much sweeter.”
Annie – [Begins to cough and head toward the sink]
Annie aggressively spits up her coffee…
…and begins to head toward the sink. William is disgusted.
Haleigh – “It doesn’t even really taste like coffee to me.”
Cate – “Is this Dunkin’? It tastes like Clever Cup… they usually have sweeter stuff.”
Riley – “It’s very hot chocolate-y.”
Manny – “It’s… okay.”
Lenerz – “No, no, I know exactly what this is. This is French vanilla from the machine in the gas station.”
Cate– “What? No! It’s so good though.”
Park – “They all got duped!”
Zach – “Yeah, it’s way too sweet. It doesn’t taste like coffee. This is disgusting.”
Haleigh – “C is for crap.”
End thoughts/general ratings:
Ratings ranged from 1-6.
“AHHH”
Starbucks (D)
Arguably the most popular coffee destination, Starbucks has previously served as the designated press night cup of joe.
Initial thoughts:
Park – “This has to be labeled D for Dunkin’… The look isn’t good. It doesn’t look like real coffee.”
“It looks sick.”
Cate – “It looks like… weirdly grey. It looks sick. This is from Dunkin’.”
Annie – “It smells stronger and much better.”
Zach – “This one’s like actual coffee, the rest of them were a joke.”
Haleigh- “It smells strong, like I’ll actually feel boosted and ready for school for once.”
Tasting:
“It’s not sweet.”
Cate – “Ew.”
Riley – “It’s not sweet.”
Zach – “This one’s good.”
Park – “It feels watery.”
Annie – “It’s not that good, but it seems better than the last ones.”
End thoughts/general ratings:
Ratings ranged from 3-5.
Zach – “I mean, to get a 6 it has to be above average.”
Riley – “Nothing we’ve had so far is particularly above average… this was like day old coffee mixed with milk.”
Haleigh – “If I needed caffeine I would drink this, but I wouldn’t leisurely drink it. If this is Dunkin’ or Starbucks I’m going to be really upset.”
Dubbed the ‘hipster’ coffee shop, Clever Cup was chosen for it’s linkage to Pine View, hosting numerous Pine View Poet’s Society slams.
Initial thoughts:
Cate – “This one looks sick too.”
Zach – “I feel like I’m going to like this one the best.”
Haleigh – “Yeah, me too. I don’t know why. It smells strong.”
Riley – “It smells like a good mix of sweet.”
Haleigh – “It’s like the coffee smell you want to wake up to.”
Annie – “It smells and seems pretty perfect.”
Cate – “It smells like a gas station.”
“THIS IS NOT GOOD”
Tasting:
Haleigh – “Oh my god”
Riley – “It’s… Ew … I–“
Zach – “This is not good.”
Annie – “Eww. I had to spit it back.”
“Ewwwwwww”
Cate- “That was disgusting.”
Haleigh – “This is just trash. No.”
Annie – “Park, how are you still drinking it?”
“Ewww that was disgusting!”
Riley – “It’s rotten. Is this Dunkin’?”
Haleigh – “It tastes burnt.”
Riley – “I rate this zero torches out of five.”
End thoughts/general ratings:
The coffee was generally rated as a 1. Park, once again becoming the outlier, rated it a 2.
Favorite Coffees by Letter
Park – C “It had a good flavor for me and felt like it had a lot of caffeine. It’s something you can travel with.”
Riley – D “Park, it sounds like you’re asking it on a date. My favorite was D because it had the most coffee flavor and wasn’t extremely, unnecessarily sweet.”
Zach – D “It was actually coffee. The rest was just like sugar and water and brown.”
Manny – “They were all the same to me.”
Cate – C “I liked C. It was really sweet, and I’m a sweet type of gal.”
Annie – B “It actually tasted like coffee and was something I’d actually look forward to drinking.”
Haleigh – B “It was strong and smelled exactly like what I would want to wake up to in the morning.”
Least Favorites by Letter
Haleigh – E: “It was watery. It tasted burnt. It was terrible.”
Park – E: “It tasted like poop. It looked like poop. It was poop.”
Riley – E: “It was bitter and watery and generally unpleasant.”
Zach – C: “I didn’t like C. It tasted like I was drinking hummingbird water. It was really sugary and sweet and gross.”
Cate had to fill in for Manny while he was at an interview – “I like all of them except E.”
Cate – E: “I didn’t like E either. I concur with Park. It tasted like poop. It was brown and it looked like poop and it tasted like a skunk.”
Annie – C: “C was disgusting. It smelled like grass. It looked like fertilizer.”
The Reveal
“A was Dunkin’ Donuts.”
Cate – “What?!”
“B was Bistro.”
Riley – “Oh, well, we didn’t really care about that one.”
“C was Shell.”
Park – “Yes!”
Cate – “No!”
“D was Starbucks.”
Zach – “Neat.”
“E was Clever Cup.”
Cate – “No! Why?!”
Annie – “The world has collapsed.”
Final Thoughts
“…I’m not that surprised.”
Park – “I’m proud of my decision of Shell being the best coffee.”
Riley – “I chose the Starbucks one, which seems pretty concurrent with my general feelings about coffee. It was very coffee-ish and not very sweet, so I’m not that surprised.”
Zach – “I liked D. I was cool with that because it was actual coffee.”
Manny – “I liked all of them except for E.”
Cate – “Okay, I am very ashamed in clever cup. I love their pastries and their pies and their everything and their tea. I’m ashamed in myself for liking Shell, but I still like it.”
Park – “Cate’s about to cry.”
Annie – “It makes sense that C was Shell. It was Park’s kind of place.”
Park – “I’d like to point out that gas stations are a good place for good cheap food to be bought and, you know, good stuff!”
Annie – “I don’t know how I feel. I wasn’t expecting much, so.”
Haleigh – “C as shell? That’s actually really surprising. I thought E was terrible and expected it to be Shell. How was E Clever Cup? I give Shell props. It wasn’t my favorite, but I give Shell props.”
In denial, Cate sips Shell coffee in a Clever Cup cup.