Dunkin' Vs Starbucks: Who Makes The Better Cold Brew?

What fuels America? Coffee, and nearly two cups per day, at least according to a survey conducted by the National Coffee Association. Furthermore, the World Population Review ranks the U.S. as number one in the world for coffee consumption. According to that NCA data, drip coffee is still the most popular choice at 41%, but cold brew, which busted onto the scene and smashed iced coffee from its frosty throne, is gaining momentum by usurping espresso as one of America's most highly consumed coffee beverages.

While we may never be able to answer the question of who reigns supreme in the classic battle of the most popular American coffee chains, we all know the competitors: Starbucks and Dunkin'. Luckily, the menus have enough similar items that we can rank many of the coffee purveyors' drinks head to head. Both coffee chains have offered cold brew in their stores for nearly a decade now, and introduced nitro cold brew shortly after. Cold foam was introduced by Starbucks nationally in 2018 and was followed by Dunkin' launching it in the winter of 2021. And though statistics from Statista show that Starbucks more than doubled Dunkin' sales in 2023, quality isn't just in the numbers. 

What's the difference between iced coffee and cold brew? Temperature and time. Iced coffee starts hot. To make iced coffee, the grounds are steeped in hot water that quickly extracts the flavor and caffeine components, and then the hot liquid is iced. 

When making cold brew coffee, however, you immerse the slightly more coarsely ground coffee beans in cold or room temperature water instead of hot water and wait several hours. (18 hours is the recommended steep time for cold brew.) Time imparts flavor, color, and caffeine into the drink.

The reason behind using cold water and a long extraction time is to remove some of the bitterness that is present in hot coffee that's been chilled. Ideally, it should also impart rich taste while being more mild overall. Cold brew also contains more caffeine than iced coffee (up to triple) because more grounds are required per ounce of water in order to achieve a flavorful, not bland cup.

As for nitro cold brew coffee, it begins its life as a cold brew, and is then infused with nitrogen gas. While the exact origins are unclear, many people credit food scientist and former Stumptown coffee roaster Nate Armbrust with the method (via MTPak Coffee).

How does adding nitrogen affect the taste of cold brew? It imparts a creamy, dreamy, velvety frothiness into the drink as well as a subtle sweetness. Since it's poured from a tap, is it also usually served at room temperature (though sometimes it comes pre-chilled, as is the case with Dunkin').

Starbucks offers its cold brew in four different sizes: tall (12 ounces), grande (16 ounces), venti (24 ounces), and trenta (30 ounces). Pricing is between $4.75 and $5.75. The vanilla sweet cream cold brew coffee is available in the same sizes and priced from $5.25 to $5.95.

Dunkin' cold brew comes in three sizes: small (16 ounces), medium (24 ounces), and large (32 ounces), and priced between $4.19 and $4.89. Dunkin' cold brew with sweet cold foam is available in the same sizes and priced between $4.89 and $5.49.

Starbucks offers two sizes of its nitro brew, tall and grande. The tall is priced at $5.75 in New York City. The grande is only 20 cents more, so if you're craving a bit more caffeine, going with a grande is a much better deal.The vanilla sweet cream nitro cold brew is also available in tall and grande sizes, priced at $5.95 and $6.25, respectively.

As of 2024, Dunkin' nitro cold brew coffee is only available at its roughly 1,000 On Tap locations. The easiest way to find one near you is via the Dunkin' app. The On Tap stores have an orange icon in the shape of a tap below participating stores. Dunkin' nitro cold brew is only available in size small and is $3.99. The nitro coffee with sweet cold foam is again only available in size small, at $4.29.

I ordered a small, black cold brew coffee. In order to taste it fairly and unadulterated, I did not add milk or sugar. This was also my first coffee of the day, so I was particularly excited to take a sip. However, that first sip tasted bitter and had an unpleasantly gritty mouthfeel. I took a second sip, thinking that maybe the first was a fluke. It was not. 

It's rare for me to order a black coffee from either Dunkin' or Starbucks, usually preferring frillier drinks. At home, I drink black coffee, no sugar quite frequently (including cold brew). The flavor reminded me of a Maxwell House-style brew. I should mention that the more I sipped, the more I did enjoy it, though, but I couldn't get past the texture. 

According to Dunkin', its cold brew is made from Arabica coffee grounds steeped for 12 hours. Shaving six hours off of the recommended infusion time could be why it tasted bitter to me, but it doesn't explain the grittiness. That can be attributed to too fine of a grind being used, which can also result in a bitter cup as well. However, I didn't find it to be offensively acidic. At 174 milligrams of caffeine in size small, it ranks lower than Starbucks in caffeine content which is 205 milligrams for the same ounce size.

Aside from not wanting to chew my coffee, it was lacking all of the attributes I've come to expect in a cold brew. If I had added milk or sugar it probably would've smoothed over the bitterness, and it's possible Dunkin' is thinking that most people will add something to their drink. 

The next drink was just as I had suspected. Adding dairy and a bit of sweetness did take some of the edge off of the original cold brew's bitterness and acidity, but not nearly enough. It also did do a pretty good job of masking the grittiness. However, I found the foam not be foamy at all. Instead, it was thin and watery and did not offer nearly enough sweetness.

This was a huge disappointment, as I really enjoyed the delectable Dunkin' summer release, a s'mores cold brew that had a heavenly flavor and texture. It was far better than what I experienced with this drink. I don't know if the Dunkin' I visited was having issues with its cold foam distribution, but this issue was not reserved for just this drink as I ran into the same issue with the cold foam in the nitro cold brew.

I was also really surprised that there was only a hint of sweetness in this drink. Dunkin' (for better or worse) is not known for subtlety in its flavorings and sweeteners, so I found this to be equally disappointing and perplexing, especially since it's an 85-calorie jump from the plain black cold brew. Dunkin' currently does not list the caffeine content of this drink on its website. 

Dunkin servies its cold brew chilled and without ice, and only in size small. In my research, I couldn't find a reason (from Dunkin' themselves or elsewhere) why. Given that a small at Dunkin' is usually what other chains classify as medium, it is by no means an issue. It has the same calorie content as the regular cold brew (5 calories for a small). 

I was surprised that the nitro cold brew is priced lower ($3.99) than the standard cold brew ($4.19). No explanation is given as to why this is either, but since I preferred it to the non-nitrogenated version, I have no complaints.

This drink is far superior to the regular cold brew in every discernible way. It's wildly smoother, abandoning the grit of the original for smooth creaminess. While there is still a large, tub-coffee aftertaste, but the plain nitro cold brew is something that's not offensive to drink black. Due to texture and flavor, this was by far my favorite of Dunkin' cold brew contenders.

Just like the cold brew with sweet cold foam, the addition of foam in this drink seemed completely unnecessary. In the same way as the first foam drink, it didn't add any creaminess or much sweetness at all. At this point, I wondered if sweet cold foam would always pale in comparison to the delicious marshmallow cold foam of summers past. I say skip this cold foam flavor and order it with the milk of your choice instead.

This drink also inexplicably had ice. I don't know if this was a mistake from the individual store I visited, because that has not been my experience at other locations. It also came with the same calorie content as the original cold brew with sweet cold foam (90 calories) and 205 milligrams of caffeine in a tall size. 

Dunkin' describes its nitro cold brew as being "Instagram-worthy" for the pleasing visual effect of cascading milk, or in this case, foam. I'm not sure if the Meta algorithm agrees, but with its wine-like legs, it definitely won the crown for the most beautiful drink of the four I sampled.

Caffeinated to the brim, I made the trek across town from Dunkin' to Starbucks. The one closest to me did not have all of the review items in stock. Starbucks' plain cold brew is similar to Dunkin' with a disappointing bitterness, but without the gritty texture. The texture alone was enough for me to enjoy this much more than the other cold brew I tried that morning.

Just like Dunkin', I found myself enjoying it more as I continued to sip, but not enough to want to order it again. In the same way that I wanted to add milk or some sort of sweetener to the Dunkin' cold brew to cut through the bitterness, Starbucks' version would benefit from additives as well. It isn't bad, and had I not had copious amounts of coffee left to sample, I would've consumed most of it. I do wonder if Starbucks has a similar issue with too fine of a grind for its coffee that results in a less-than-stellar product. Just like Dunkin', this cold brew is low calorie but load with 155 milligrams of caffeine. 

I had to make an executive choice here: compare Starbucks' newer non-dairy vanilla sweet cream cold foam with cold brew, or go with the regular vanilla sweet cream cold brew. Striving to find an equal comparison to Dunkin' sweet cold foam on either a major textural or flavorful difference, I chose the latter because comparing dairy versus non-dairy isn't a fair fight.

Off the bat, this drink was a little more substantive with 70 calories, but it was slightly lighter on the jittery aspect with 145 milligrams of caffeine. The vanilla sweet cream is richer than the non-vegan cold foams on the menu, using 2% milk and heavy whipping cream in its recipe. Despite its richer base, the sweet cream melted into the drink just like the cold foam at Dunkin' did, and was too watery. It did add quite a bit of sweetness to the drink without becoming overbearing and removed some of the bitterness. I would've liked the richness of the cream to be more present overall, but it wasn't bad. 

I haven't ordered a nitro cold brew from Starbucks in quite a while, usually favoring the seasonal drinks l view as a special treat. The Starbucks closest to me did not have nitro drinks available on the day I went in, but this location seems to be having some stock issues as a late, so I wouldn't suspect an issue with finding nitro near you. So, I trudged not too far across town and found a location with nitro cold brew on its menu.

Shockingly, and despite Starbucks' website touting that its nitro cold brew is steeped for 20 hours (2 beyond the recommended 18), this particular nitro coffee was more bitter and less smooth than the plain cold brew. Thankfully, it is served already chilled and without ice. It wasn't as foamy or as creamy as I anticipated, but with the added bitterness, you're better off going with the original cold brew. This drink packs a whopping 215 milligrams of caffeine for a tall (12 ounce) size so while I didn't enjoy the taste, if you're looking for an immediate pick-me-up, this is the drink to choose. 

I was confused by this drink, because the vanilla sweet cream is not considered a cold foam by the brand, yet when served with the nitro cold brew, the sweet cream resembled a foam in taste and texture. It sat neatly on top of my drink, never incorporating itself like it did in the original cold brew, and also did not dilute it. Oddly, it also did not add the same sweetness that the sweet cream did to the other cold brew drink.

I do not like ice in my nitro cold brew, but it was present here. Starbucks insists on putting it in most of its drinks (including, unfortunately, in its cream cold brews) and this always loses points in my opinion. Despite the ice, it maintained a smooth texture and mild acidity. I was expecting to like this drink the most out of the four, but without the sweetness and with the slightly more substantial bitterness of the nitro, it did not beat the bunch. 

If the contest came down to nitro cold brew alone, Dunkin' would be victorious. The New England-based chain nearly lost out to its Seattle competitor for the disappointing foam, but if we are judging solely on the taste and quality of the pure nitro cold brew, black, no sugar, then Dunkin' is superior to Starbucks. The flavor and creamy texture as well as the price make the nitro cold brew a clear defeater. However, this contest was about overall cold brew line-ups.

In a classic cold brew competition, the winner is Starbucks. The texture alone was enough to put this ahead of Dunkin' and that is not including its range of specialty flavors that didn't make it into this review. (The mouthwatering pumpkin cream cold brew and chocolate cream cold brew come to mind.) Although its still too bitter to be considered a great cold brew, it edges out Dunkin' in every area except price.

The biggest reason that this competition goes to Starbucks is for its non-gritty original cold brew coffee. Even with the bitterness of its nitro cold brew, it's still superior overall to a sip of a sandy cold water, and contains more caffeine per ounce. Which is really what drinking coffee is about, right?