world's worst cup of coffee!!!

We were heading down from an amazing day of snowboarding, Becky, Seth, Paul, me. No traffic. Fresh powder in the morning. Sunny and warm but not slushy or icy. We cut out before the last run of the day to keep up with our good luck of no traffic and to stop in Idaho Springs at the McDonalds for a famed cup of their "unsnobby coffee" espresso drink. I haven't eaten McDonald's food in about a decade and haven't been in one in over 5 years. (In 2004 I went in for a desperate potty break.) I wasn't sure about the McCafe phenomenon. Paul and I saw one open up in New Zealand while we were there and refused to go in. Seth was more hopeful. He'd stopped at 4 other McDonalds trying to get his taste-buds around their version of coffee but always with the promise that it was coming soon. Today his wish would be granted. We pulled up to the drive-through and ordered two mocha's, a vanilla latte and a cappucino. Make that three mocha's and a vanilla latte. The ordering process alone made us skeptical. We pull up to the next window. If you ever wished McDonalds would just slow down (c'mon peeps, what's the rush?) you would have been thrilled. We sat in the car wondering if they were growing the beans. The ads said they ground the beans but were they sprouting them too? She finally passed 3 mochas out to us. They felt disapointingly light. She said the latte was going to take a bit longer. We gave them the benefit of the doubt thinking that maybe they hadn't really practiced making espresso drinks. I mean, really, they specialize in heart-stopping deep fried potatoes and mad cow burgers, I don't think their job description allows for barista skills. We did't wait for Becky's latte. The rest of us greedily sip our mochas. Ugh. Are you kidding me? What is this? Watered down milk with whip cream and chocolate drizzle? The three of us were equally dissapointed. Maybe Seth was more so. He'd been anticipating this for a couple weeks while Paul and I had only been thinking about it for the past 40 minutes. Becky's latte finally came. She tasted it. Passed it to me without comment. Her face said it all. I sipped. "Uh, it tastes like hot plastic, wait, maybe its the lid, nope, tastes like hot plastic."

Starbucks, I don't think you have anything to worry about.