One coffee large double double

In this age of globalization, few things can be said to be uniquely Canadian. Tim Hortons is surely one of them. This chain of coffee houses was founded nearly fifty years ago by a Canadian ice hockey player (as you might have already guessed) Mr. Tim Horton. After so many years and thousands of branches, its presence is still mainly Canadian. Very few people know about it outside Canada. It has become a part of this culture and the expression ’double double’ has found its way into Canadian English. By the way, this double double just means 2 cream and 2 sugars in coffee, which is double the amount of a regular one. Everyone seems so addicted to it that a conspiracy theorist even suggested that they might be adding some special ingredient to keep people hooked (like some roadside tea hotels on GT road in Pakistan). Even the Canadian mission to Afghanistan, requested a Tim Hortons to be opened in Kandahar and Canadian Government has to subsidize this outlet for five years at the cost of around $5 million per year.

I think its appeal mainly lies in the freshness of its coffee and baked goods. They always serve fresh and after a certain amount of time, if goods are not sold, these are thrashed or perhaps given away. So, as soon as I landed in Toronto, I searched for a nearby Tim Hortons and ordered one coffee large double double. At that time, they were serving extra amounts of coffee under some promotional scheme. As a result, I got an extra large cup of coffee instead of large one that kept me awake for nearly a day. Well, jet lag was partly to be blamed on this one.