Tim Hortons is famously known worldwide as Canada’s favourite coffee shop. Interestingly, the chain's iconic recipe hasn’t changed since it opened the doors to its first restaurant in 1964. So what goes into making every cup taste just right? Well, Narcity’s Ashna Bharkhada had an opportunity to tour the Tim Hortons Roastery in Ancaster, Ontario, and got a behind-the-scenes look at how their top-secret recipe goes from bean to brew to get that signature coffee taste.
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TravelTranscript
00:00 so how often do you do this do you do this multiple times a day? I spend most of my day here.
00:06 Mornings would be so hard without my coffee.
00:09 Hi there can I please get a small regular double-cupped?
00:12 [music]
00:16 So good.
00:17 For so many Canadians Tim Hortons is a part of their daily routine.
00:21 It's cheap, it tastes good and you can find one in basically every corner of the country.
00:25 But did you know that all Tim Hortons coffee in Canada is produced in a small town just outside of Toronto?
00:31 I was recently invited to take a tour of Tim Hortons Roastery in Ancaster, Ontario.
00:36 The warehouse stores and ships 1.5 million pounds of coffee a week
00:40 and produces enough coffee to make 270,000 cups an hour.
00:44 When I first stepped into the warehouse I got a big waft of that familiar Tim's coffee smell.
00:48 The plant manager started the tour and showed us how Tim Hortons coffee goes from bean to brew.
00:53 They really have their process down to a T.
00:55 Their beans are shipped in from Central and South America,
00:58 from countries like Guatemala, Brazil and Colombia.
01:01 Tim Hortons is a blend of five bean types.
01:03 Side note, did you know coffee beans are green in colour
01:06 and only turn brown before they get roasted? I'd never seen a raw coffee bean before.
01:11 So the process starts with inspecting beans for defects and cleaning them to remove any sticks,
01:15 stones and metal. Then they move to the blending and roasting process.
01:19 Tim's uses the Neptune 3000 roasters, which according to them are the world's most advanced roasters.
01:24 10,000 pounds of coffee is roasted per hour and it takes approximately 12 minutes to roast a batch.
01:29 After being cooled for two hours, the beans head to the grinders
01:32 and then move to the degassing stage to keep them fresh.
01:35 Finally, it's on to packing. The equivalent of 975 pots of Tim Hortons coffee are packaged every minute.
01:41 And then you can see here where it's flickering,
01:44 it's adding 16 pouches on a layer to 144 pouches in a case.
01:49 So we're doing about seven and a half cases per minute.
01:52 Then a very cool looking robot automatically stacks 64 boxes on each pallet.
01:58 The plant manager called it one of the best employees because it works 24 hours a day,
02:02 it doesn't go for a break. Then the boxes are put in storage and shipped within two days.
02:06 The plant manager says they rarely have any issues with their process.
02:10 And if they do, they're easily able to backtrack to which bag it came from.
02:14 Which brings me to my next point.
02:15 Something else that really amazed me about the roastery was quality control.
02:18 They go through such great lengths to get that signature coffee taste profile.
02:22 How would you describe the flavor notes of Tim Hortons coffee?
02:26 - The medium or dark?
02:27 - Medium.
02:28 - Medium. Medium coffee is all human. It's all man. It's kind of medium range.
02:35 Sweetness, acidity, variety. Everything is medium.
02:40 Like the sweet, caramel, nutty notes, citrus, a touch of spiciness.
02:45 It's nothing is all power.
02:49 While on tour, I learned this new term called cupping.
02:52 Basically, it's another word for sampling coffee.
02:54 Tim's taste their coffee multiple times throughout the process to ensure it
02:57 maintains the same taste and quality.
02:59 Some employees that work at the plant actually cup coffee all day long. It's wild.
03:03 So how often do you do this? Do you do this multiple times a day?
03:08 - Yes, actually. I spend most of my day here.
03:13 In the morning, I roast coffee and then cup for five tables. It's full of cups.
03:21 So we cup 250, 300 cups a day.
03:24 As I mentioned, Tim Hortons coffee beans come from Central and South America.
03:29 By the time they reach the warehouse, they've already been sampled three times
03:32 to ensure their quality has remained uncompromised throughout their journey.
03:36 - All the beans again, like how many, what percentage would you say is like a bad batch?
03:40 - We reject about 10% of coffee.
03:44 Then the coffee is tested again after it's roasted and packed.
03:48 Every hour, we keep three pouches of the finished goods.
03:52 Every fifth batch, which is every hour on each roaster,
03:57 we take a sample and we cup that to make sure that it's our standard.
04:00 The other two pouches are kept in storage until their expiration date,
04:03 so the team can go back if there's ever an issue at store level.
04:06 - Does everyone work here have like the exact smell memorized?
04:10 Like how do you know what a bad batch is?
04:12 - You sip Tim Hortons coffee long enough, you get to find the fine notes, right?
04:18 And you get to know them and you can pick out defects very quickly.
04:22 Now, how do you cup?
04:23 Well, Tim's gave us a chance to blend her own coffee,
04:26 then taught us how to cup properly, starting with smelling the coffee.
04:29 - I bring my nose close to the cup, break the crust,
04:33 just take off the grounds, inhale the aroma.
04:37 Then you go in for a taste.
04:40 I made my own blend mixing the five types of beans available from Guatemala, Nicaragua,
04:57 Brazil, Indonesia, and Colombia.
04:59 Guatemalan coffee is known to have more nuttier notes,
05:02 whereas Indonesian coffee is stronger and has notes of chocolate.
05:05 - Okay, moment of truth. Let's taste my coffee.
05:08 Let's just say I will not be working at Tim Hortons anytime soon.
05:17 My coffee tasted so bad,
05:20 but I couldn't believe how meticulous the team at Tim Hortons was
05:23 at ensuring that every cup of coffee that came out of that plant tasted just right.
05:27 So it got me thinking, now we know where Tim Hortons coffee beans come from,
05:31 we know how the process works,
05:33 but what actually goes into the blend that makes the recipe so unique?
05:37 - I've been here for 11 and a half years, I don't know the recipe.
05:40 So the commodity group will be cupping the green beans,
05:45 and then they put in the formula.
05:48 The formula will go into it in the background in the computer system.
05:52 Then they'll send me an email saying,
05:55 "Here's the number that you're going to use today to use in recipe 419."
05:59 We put in 419 in the background,
06:01 it starts drawing the amounts of coffee for the roast.
06:04 - Would you like to put the regular blend in the mix of those five?
06:07 - Um, you know, I don't know what is in the blend.
06:13 There's only a select few of us that can tell you what that is.
06:17 - No one on the tour can actually tell me what goes into the Tim Hortons recipe
06:21 because no one actually knows.
06:23 Clearly a highly guarded company secret.
06:26 I have to say, the Tim Hortons Roastery Tour was exceptional.
06:29 It really gave me insight into everything that goes into making this beloved Canadian drink.
06:34 What surprised you most about the tour?
06:36 Let us know in the comments.