Tim Horton's brand bullshit.

The BBQ Pit
1

Okay, I like Hortie’s as much as is reasonable. I’m pushing my second sausage breakfast sandwich into my face right now - two of those little bad boys every morning prepare me to face the day.

There are things over t’Horton’s that really put a hair up my Canadian ass, though:

First, it’s the way they have successfully parlayed their corporate brand identity into the a sort of misguided Canadian nationalism. People who look askance at our neighbours’ apparent flag fetishism have no problem rallying 'round a box of freaking TimBits. Whatever, bully for Horton’s for finding an angle that works, even if it is a little embarrassing.

I don’t hate Horton’s, that would be silly. It’s not like they’re Starbucks or anything - the product isn’t actually offensive. I mean, yeah, I still bring my coffee from home in a Thermos every day because it’s better - but if I happen to be out and about, I’m happy to grab a cup at Tim’s, and I know I’ll get to the bottom of it. It’s not like Starbucks, where once in a while I’ll buy a cup because there’s nothing else, but most of it’s gonna end up getting dumped out because it’s just fucking vile. No, Hortie’s has a respectable cup of coffee. Can’t say a word against them there.

What has me riled is this: The woman in front of me this morning asked for a “steeped tea.”

Yes, she specified that she would like her tea steeped. If she did this because she was mentally defective, it would pass. I am nothing if not charitable.

But it’s not her fault. It says it right there on the menu board: “Steeped tea.”

If that was all, it might still pass.

No, those silly asses had to spend millions on a campaign to let us all know that Tim Horton’s tea is steeped. They even ran especially annoying ads equating “steeped” with teen superlative buzzwords like “awesome” or “radical,” or whatever the hell it is that the kids are saying these days.

Now, this would not bother me nearly so much if not for Tim Horton’s marketing strategy of equating their brand with Canadian identity.

Look, if (English) Canada has a unifying caffeinated bevvy, IT’S TEA. TEA!

Setting Canadians up to look ignorant about tea is fucking treasonous.

We have a global commons now. They can watch the CBC in the UK.

If they see us wandering around blithely referring to “steeped” tea as if it was something special, the work of generations and generations will be for naught.
“Our poor Canadian cousins in the backwards colonies,” they’ll say. “Hey, Jacques, ja want some tea? It’s the good kind, eh? It’s steeped. Not only that, it’s wet.”

titters

“I boiled the water and everything. It’s hot.”

guffaws

“Are you sure it’s steeped now?”

“Yeah, eh, I think it’s better than the percolated kind.” “Are you sure? You didn’t use the drip method? You put the Loose tea in a touque, pack it with snow, and let it melt through? That’s how Billy Five Trucks makes it over t’curling rink.”

“Naw, I thought I’d steep it, eh? Like they do over at the Great Canadian Doughnut Store.”

entire assembly collapses in mocking laughter*

Fuck you, Horton’s. Fuck you and your delicious breakfast sandwiches. You suck.

2

BUT. As another mitigating factor. Their “Canadian maple donut.” Mmmm.

3

“You mean I have to drink this coffee HOT?!?”

4

You’re kind of missing the point.

When you order ‘tea’, you get a cup of boiled water and a tea bag (in or out, your choice).

What they are offering as ‘steeped tea’ is actually tea that they have steeped in a large pot and will pour you a cup of, no bag at all. Get it?

It’s a move to speed up tea service, I suspect. Just pour it up and sugar/milk it, more like how they serve coffee. Because, y’know, there’s always one person who doesn’t do coffee and wants a cup of tea.

The saddest part of this is the steeped tea is horrifically bad. They should get someone who knows something about drinking tea to give them lessons. Instead of boiling the water and adding the bags, letting it steep, then removing the bags, as granny might. They boil the water, throw in the bags and then just leave it steeping and never remove the bags. This makes the tea horribly bitter and overly strong, yuck. Certainly not to the taste of most tea drinkers I know. Such a small detail, such a bad effect.

Not to worry though, I’m quite confident it will soon disappear as the way they are currently doing it insures it won’t survive in my opinion.

Hope I cleared that up for you.

5

HOT? What kind of nonsense is this? Every sane American knows that tea is drunk cool from a tall glass with just a slice of lemon or a dash or lemon juice.

6

Our area here (the North Coast) has been struck by the Sweet Tea bandwagon. Every fast-food restaurant is touting Sweet Tea when once it would have pushed either Coke or Pepsi. Sweet tea is a southern deal and has hit us in the last year. Can’t get away from it.

7

I like Southern style tea, but for some reason it just doesn’t taste right up here in WV. Don’t know if it’s the water or what, but it just doesn’t have the same flavor.

8

Damn straight. This why I always ask for a specific type of tea and tell them to leave the bag in. It guarantees that I’m not getting steeped tea.

9

No, just a bit of sugar. Perhaps a sprig of mint.

I drink iced tea all day long, and I don’t generally put anything in at all.

10

Ya know, I was in Canadia not a score of years ago and found to be the entire Horton’s experience to be a little, well, odd. First, they’re literally and figuratively EVERYWHERE. We drove from the Ambassador Bridge to the coast along whatever root (er, route) we could find, and where there was nothing but wheatfields and abandoned farm equipment, there was also a Tim Horton’s. Starbucks could learn a thing or three from them. Then, when it appeared there was no other choice, we tried a Tim Horton’s. The experience went somethin’ like this here…

we drive up to the orderboard:

Nasal Canadian Chick:
Hello eh, welcome to Tim Horton’s, how can I help you eh? ( I almost feel like I’m there).
Me: Yeah, I’ll have a turkey sandwich meal.

NCC: Ok, ya want coffee with that? (I think to myself, it’s like 3 in the afternoon, what a silly assed question)

Me: No, diet coke, pepsi whatever will be fine.

NCC: OK eh, and what kinda donitcha want wit it?

Me: What?

NCC: Donit, what kinda donitcha want witcher meal dere?

Me: What?

NCC: You get a donit witcher meal, we got plain, chocolate and, dats it right now

Me: Chocolate I guess.

NCC: OK, that’ll be six hundred and fifty dollars (obviously, this was before the dollar became worthless, plus she was a wiseass), please pull around. Eh.

So I do. I get the meal, the sandwich is respectable, the diet and chips the same as everywhere else, but the donit, well, if I was in the barfightin business, I’d be carryin a Horton’s Chocolate Donut and a sock around where ever I went. If a fracas ever arose, I’d put that donut in the sock and beat my opponent half to death ala Steven Segal in Out for Justice.

All that said though, I would think that steeped business meant they actually brewed it as opposed to making it from some type of mix. As far as sweet tea, there are two places to get it where it doesn’t positively suck; one is the appropriately named Cracker Barrel and basically anywhere in Georgia that isn’t a chain, franchise or mass marketed diner. The McDonalds stuff suck-diddly-ucks.

11

Ah. I see. It’s much worse than I suspected.

“Can I have a hot cup of tannic acid? Double-double. Actually, triple-triple; my ulcers have been acting up.”

They brag that it’s Orange Pekoe, for the love of Christ.

Orange Pekoe, the “American Cheese” of infused beverages.

12

I’m sorry your Timmy’s experience was sub-par, buttonjockey. They used to have a very nice donut, but they started making them and freezing them and shipping them all over the place, so their donuts are very mediocre now.

I must protest your use of “eh,” however. We don’t put “eh” on questions; we put “eh” on statements, turning them into questions. Like, for example, “This truck has an excellent heater, eh?”

13

It’s even worse than that. Once, in extremis, I ordered a tea at Timmy’s, with milk. What did they do? They put a shot of milk into the cup, then filled it with boiling water, then put a teabag in it.

That’s not tea with milk, that’s a fucking teabag floating in polluted water. WTF?

Seriously, I wrote a letter. That’s just bullshit.

Incidentally, virtually no teabag tea sold as orange pekoe actually is. Orange pekoe is a term describing whole tea leaves of a particular size and configuration. Teabag tea is not orange pekoe; it is typically broken orange pekoe, fannings, and dust (small particles of tea leaves).

14

Ah well, my Canadian experience overall was spectacular, you all have a very nice country up there. Sorry aboot the vernacular mixup though. :wink:

15

I always considered the notion of “Timbits” in somewhat morbid bad taste - considering how the eponymous hockey player died. :wink:

16

Damn you people…I need to watch my diet, I do not need to crave Tim’s…oh fuck it, I’m going for an iced capp and a doughnut. leaves

17

Thank you, we try to keep it nice. :slight_smile:

That’s, “Sorry aboot the vernacular mixup though, eh.”
{Sigh}
Foreigners.

18

Well, there’s your problem. You were in Minnesota.

19

After being stuck drinking the dishwater they call coffee at Tims for the last year, a cup of tannic acid sounds good.

The other thing that disgusts me every time I’m trapped ordering an extra-large dishwater at Tims is the fact that keep using the same spoon all day long to stir. I order a coffee, they squirt cream into it, then grab a spoon out of a large cup of brown water, stir my coffee and throw the spoon back into the cup of dirty water. Then the person behind orders, they use the same spoon… over and over and over… For all I know, they’ve been using that spoon since the first Tim Hortons was built. :eek:

It’s absolutely disgusting.

But the TimBits are addictive.

20

Depending upon which Ms Manners you listen to from the Old Dart, you actually should put the milk in the cup first. :slight_smile: However that is refering to pouring a cuppa from the tea pot, and not putting a teabag in the cup. :smiley: