New Customers From New Coffee--'Intelligentsia Design' or 'B.K. Joke'?
Okay, so Burger King has introduced this new coffee, B.K. Joe, available in regular, decaf, and (wait for it . . .) TURBO ("40 percent more caffeine!"*).
*Exclamation point ours.
A lot of places hope to lure in customers with good coffee as a draw to buy other products. McDonald's, for instance, is doing something similar, but using New England as the test market, so we can't really check that out yet (using fair trade, organic coffee and hyping the quality, not the power, which seems like a better idea to us). Specialty's, though, is now carrying Intelligentsia coffee, a pretty well-known brand out of Chicago that's apparently well-liked amongst coffee snobs. We, in fact, were excited to hear this; Specialty's old coffee . . . well, let's just say your Trimethyldioxypurist's cheapness is well known, yet even he couldn't stomach Specialty's 50-cent-if-you-bring-your-own-cup deal back when he used to work near the Montgomery Station location.
We went back to that location, the first time in a few years. They no longer had those delicious cookies with the dried fruit in them (admittedly, we were the only person that we knew who loved them), but the new coffee, in fact, was heads above what we remember. Not as cheap. But man, it was pretty good. And we bought two (non-dried-fruit-laden, damnit) cookies, which anecdotally says to us that the presence of better coffee should work at the Specialty's chain. So -- how 'bout "The King?"
First of all, despite the prevalence of the annoying commercials, the new B.K. Joe is amazingly hard to find. Curiously, the Union Square location actually has it on the menu but doesn't yet serve it. We ordered a regular, they gave it to us. Tasted like flavored styrofoam. Then we went back, asked for a "turbo." This is when the clerk revealed to us she didn't know what we were talking about. We pointed to the menu. She got the manager. He told us that they "hadn't set up the new machine yet."
So, we were pretty pissed, having wasted a buck twenty. However, this gave us the opportunity to taste their old, "non-special" coffee, so, on the bright side, we'd have something to compare it to when we found this mythic B.K. Joe.
The search went on -- no dice in either the Mission or Portero location. Then your genius Trimethyldioxypurist decided to use his so-called "telephone machine." Apparently, the Van Ness store would serve it.
And they supposedly did, though we must say that it didn't taste much different --perhaps a bit less of the "styrofoam" flavor characteristic, and, since we ordered the "turbo", the "40% more grinds=40% more caffeine" technique was pretty obvious (a bit sour, etc., the kind of stuff that typically happens when you overload a drip brewer). True to the claims of power, though, it did make us jumpy.
We made this a "coffee sandwich" of sorts by going back to Specialty's, another location, and had another pretty good cup of Intelligentsia (we tried a medium roast, which isn't usually our favorite, but the Tortuga proved quite nice if not spectacular. Quite fun to read about, though; follow that link.)
Ultimately, no matter how good a coffee is, the folks at the place serving it need to prepare it well. Burger King's coffee seems to us to be more of a marketing technique than a new offering; not that we were expecting any less, to tell you the truth. But . . . will we be going to Specialty's more often because of the upgrade?
Yeah. Definitely. It's pretty convenient to where we work. We aim to try all the blends they have available, and anticipate an occasional cookie or soup or sandwich will be part of that package. Do we represent the typical consumer? Your opinions welcomed . . .