What Goes Into Making Your Dunkin’ Coffee? An Inside Look in Honor of National Coffee Day

What Goes Into Making Your Dunkin’ Coffee? An Inside Look in Honor of National Coffee Day

This Sunday, September 29, is National Coffee Day, and in celebration of one of our favorite holidays, we’re giving our fans a behind-the-scenes look at all things coffee at Dunkin’! Be sure to follow along all week for a special blog series featuring exclusive National Coffee Day content.

At Dunkin’, we pride ourselves on quality from tree to cup, beginning with what grows on the coffee tree (yes, it’s a fruit!), and ending with what you sip in our stores every day. As you’re taking that first oh-so-good sip of your daily Dunkin’ coffee, do you ever wonder about the journey your coffee has taken before arriving in your cup? Today, we’re excited to share a sneak peek into the quality process that takes place at origin (the countries where coffee is grown!), for every single coffee shipment, before arriving to you.

Delivering a high-quality cup of coffee starts with the coffee beans.

Here at Dunkin’, we work with labs at origin that perform quality control checks and traceability operations every day. Coffee starts as a berry-like fruit and the coffee beans are the seeds inside. Depending on how and where the coffee is grown, those seeds (aka beans) can look and taste very different. Our labs work to determine which beans meet Dunkin’s specifications to ensure our roasters here in the U.S. get the beans needed to give our blends their signature tastes.

Dunkin’s origin labs and ‘Cuppers’ certify every single coffee shipment.

All Dunkin’ coffee is certified by our labs, worldwide, before it can be shipped to our roasters. That certification process includes passing both physical and sensory testing, so that the beans look and taste just right. Our expert ‘Cuppers’ taste hundreds (yes, hundreds) of cups of coffee each day to certify our beans.

In addition to managing coffee quality certification, our labs give us a physical presence at origin and allow us to have first-hand knowledge of anything that could affect the coffee quality or supply. They are a physical representation of Dunkin’ to the local coffee industry and help us maintain close ties within those communities and train them on our quality standards. Our Coffee Quality Assurance Team here at Dunkin’ regularly travels to origin to meet, train and collaborate with our partners on the ground.

Our roasting facilities here in the U.S. help create that signature Dunkin’ taste.

Once our coffee is certified by our labs, we transport the beans to our roasting facilities in the U.S. At our roasting facilities, we blend different beans together to make the perfect, well-balanced cup of coffee you know and love from Dunkin’.

Next, we roast our beans! You can watch the magic happen as the beans’ color evolves from green to yellow to brown. When the beans begin to turn brown, the sugar in them caramelizes, revealing the smooth, sweet flavor. Our Coffee Quality Assurance Team ensures a full sensory evaluation is conducted on the finished coffee products before shipping to your neighborhood Dunkin’ for brewing!

Our Coffee Excellence Team, made up of Quality Assurance, Commercialization, Supply Chain and Culinary R&D, work together closely throughout the entire process to make sure our guests receive the high-quality cup of coffee they expect from Dunkin’.

How are you celebrating National Coffee Day with Dunkin’? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!

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