There are few pleasures I savor more than a cup of well made cappuccino and Dorman’s coffee shop has fed me this delight for years. slowly,but surely I am hooked on coffee: the taste and the aroma. And like my friends who can tell the difference between single malt and blended whiskey I can do the same with coffee. So when I am confronted with badly brewed coffee I can tell in a sip.
The Dorman’s chain has managed to maintain a level of consistency in it’s brewing of coffee and I have not much to complain about, however this has been constantly broken by the chain’s branches at JKIA. One is situated in the international departure lounge and the other is located just outside the international arrivals area. There is also one in the domestic departure loung.
The cappucino’s there cost much more than in the city, but taste absolutely awful. I can’t ever remember finishing a cup and always feel cheated. The funny thing is I have kept buying a cup of coffee whenever I am at the airport hoping that this time I will get the Dorman’s taste, unfortunately I have finally thrown in the towel and headed for the Java coffee shop at the extreme end of the departure gates.
After a bit of digging I found out that the coffee shop outlets at the airport are actually run as a franchise by the Nairobi Airport Services (NAS) and they are making a mess of it. The service is rough and impolite and the coffee, as mentioned before, speaks for itself. What I can’t understand is why Dorman’s would allow a franchisee to muddy their name or is it that JKIA is so ‘far’ from town that they can’t supervise effectively. This might really be the case because even the Java coffee shop staff are not as friendly and efficient as their city based colleagues or is it the lack of air conditioning in the area?
What ever the reason bad coffee is bad coffee and I am through hoping it will improve.
