Every Dunkin’ Iced Coffee, Ranked Worst To Best
Dunkin’ iced coffee is a phenomenon, adored by Hollywood stars and TikTok stars alike. If the commercials are to be believed, America runs on the stuff. It’s the morning fuel of choice for a large number of people, but is it any good? To find out for ourselves, we decided to sample every flavour of Dunkin’ iced coffee.
To begin, we should discuss our methodology. Each drink at Dunkin’ is highly customizable, with thousands of possible combinations of milk, sweeteners, and syrups. Almost anything on the menu can be flavoured in a variety of ways. We didn’t have time to sample thousands of coffees, so we narrowed our search strategically. We tasted each speciality beverage in its natural state. We tasted the majority of the flavour syrups as add-ons to plain iced coffees in order to evaluate them in their most natural state, and we did not combine multiple syrups.
With that out of the way, let’s get to the rankings. Residents of New England, please do not take offence at us.
The iced Americano is the purest form of Dunkin’s espresso, consisting solely of espresso and water over ice. Espresso from the chain does not fare well in the spotlight. Unlike other beverages that conceal the espresso’s shortcomings with milk, sweeteners, and flavourings, the iced Americano reveals the espresso’s ugly truth. It’s extremely bitter — to the point of tasting burnt. Additionally, we detected flavours of charred sticks and scorched plastic.
This drink had the flavour of espresso made with a supermarket brand of budget coffee, such as Folgers. The flavour was over-extracted, and in such a concentrated form, the cheap coffee’s off-taste was intolerable. Along with the bitterness, it possessed a sour, almost tannic quality that left our mouths feeling parched. Each time we took a sip of this, we literally grimaced. If you’re in the mood for an espresso-based beverage from Dunkin’, anything else on the menu is preferable.
Crawford Smith/Tasting Table According to Food & Wine, the Shamrock Macchiato was added to Dunkin’s menu as a limited-time St. Patrick’s Day item, but we were still able to obtain one about a month after the holiday. Perhaps they had leftover shamrock syrup because no one wanted to purchase it.
