We Tried Donut Shop's Snickers Coffee. Here's How It Went

Keurig K-Cups are a ridiculously easy way of getting caffeine in under five minutes without sacrificing your time or bank account waiting in a drive-thru line. Sure, the plastic cups may not be the most eco–friendly and the results in terms of flavor and robustness tend to be lacking compared to a French press or a drip machine. However, when the morning minutes already feel like hours and every morning feels like Monday morning, we won't judge if you reach for that quick and convenient little white cup.

The Original Donut Shop coffee brand tries to deliver quality hot coffee taste without the coffee shop price. Its coffee is a just-right mixture of smooth and dark without being too bitter or burnt-tasting. Plus, it offers a mouth-watering array of scrumdiddlyumptious flavors that could make you kiss those Starbucks drinks goodbye (except maybe for the pumpkin spice latte).

The Original Donut Shop coffee's latest flavor collaboration is with one of the world's most iconic candy bars — Snickers. The partnership combines the rich and dark flavors of coffee with the peanut and caramel notes found in every Snickers, putting together all the elements of a grown-up candy bar experience(via PR Newswire). Of course, upon hearing this, we rushed to the nearest web browser to pick up a box of these and figure out whether this new coffee collaboration lives up to the hype or if it's just a buzzkill that's not worth the caffeine crash.

In most things delicious and highly processed, the ingredients label can look like the inside of a chemistry textbook filled with unpronounceable or unintelligible words. Snickers bars are somewhat of an exception to this rule, though they do contain artificial flavors. They're mostly made with ingredients like milk, sugar, oil, nuts, and other foods that you could actually pick up in a grocery store. However, The Original Donut Shop Snickers coffee doesn't contain any of those things.

The Original Donut Shop Snickers has only three ingredients: coffee, natural flavors, and artificial flavors (via Walmart). In terms of the coffee itself, we can't pinpoint its exact sourcing, but Original Donut Shop coffee does contain arabica and robusta coffee (via Foods Co). The brand is owned by Keurig, as is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, per PR Newswire. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters sources over 30 varieties of coffee from Indonesia, Central America, Columbia, and East Africa, so it's possible that its corporate cousin, The Original Donut Shop, sources its coffee from those areas as well.

The Keurig website describes this product as a light roast coffee with hints of chocolate, caramel, and nuttiness that is both Kosher and artificially flavored. We can't really figure out what's in that flavoring, but we can guess that Snickers and Keurig are exchanging artificial flavor secrets.

Thankfully, this sweet and new coffee collaboration is not just available on obscure websites or exclusively for foodie influencers. In fact, this Snickers-flavored coffee is available at many grocery stores and retailers online.

Naturally, different-sized boxes range in price, and not every retailer is going to offer the same selection. Not-so-shockingly, Amazon offers a good bargain with a wide range of box sizes from a six-count to a 100-count box, though some sizes are sold out at the time of publishing. Kroger has a 12-count box for around $8, which is around the same price available from Amazon for only six pods. Even Staples has the candy-coated coffee pods available online for around $15 for a 24-pack. Walmart is surprisingly one of the most expensive options, at almost $25 for a 12-pack, but desperate times can call for desperate measures when coffee consumption is involved.

Keurig's website, though, definitely has the best deals for K-Cups, especially if you go for the subscription price option. At the cheapest rate, a 12-pack would cost less than $8, a 24-pack would be around $14, and a 96-count box would cost around $55, which is the best bang for your caffeinated buck.

The Original Donut Shop coffee brand goes well beyond basic cafe drip coffee flavors. Of course, the regular coffee acts as the neutral base for the richness of the Snickers coffee blend. Snickers is far from the only uniquely-flavored coffee blend available through The Original Donut Shop, as well.

One of the alluring components of these K-Cups is the intoxicating smell that transforms your home into a mom-and-pop bakery. Some K-Cup coffee flavors like honey bun, red velvet latte, and cinnamon dulce are similar to the Snickers blend because they are so fragrant and pungent. Although there are nut and caramel-infused duo pods, there isn't another K-Cup offered that achieves the same nougat taste as the Snickers blend.

Baking sweet treats at home is hardly worth the mess when brewing a cup of this java can fill your kitchen with all the same smells. However, the Snickers blend lacks that additional creaminess you gain from The Original Donut Shop latte pods, which also tend to be sweeter than the regular artificially flavored coffee pods. Adding cream to your cup of Snickers coffee would only take it that step further, creating the perfect hybrid of creamy, sweet, and fragrant — just like grandma used to bake.

Most of the time, black coffee is a very low-calorie beverage. In fact, it doesn't really have many nutrients to speak of. Each Original Donut Shop Snickers coffee pod has approximately zero calories with no vitamins, fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates, protein, or fiber (via Foods Co). This shouldn't be that surprising since coffee, especially black coffee, can be healthy for your heart (and soul, of course).

There may be some uneasiness about whether drinking coffee can be good for your heart health but actually, it can reduce your risk of heart disease. Research does not specify what type of coffee is best for heart health but the American Heart Association explains that three to five 8-ounce cups of black coffee a day can be part of a well-balanced diet.

It's important to specify the potential health benefits of black coffee specifically, which can possibly reduce the risk of Alzheimer's Disease, certain cancers, cirrhosis, and even Parkinson's Disease (via WebMD). While sugary lattes and Frappuccinos are delicious, they may not have the same health benefits as black coffee thanks to the added sugar and fat. That being said, there is room for moderation with all these caffeinated treats and for some, the Snickers coffee collaboration is perfectly sweet and delicious on its own — no heavy cream or sugar required.

That first bite of a candy bar, like that first sip of coffee, is always the best. Comparing a cup of coffee to a candy bar is hard, and disappointment often becomes the by-product of high expectations. That being said, brewing the coffee was by far the most enjoyable part of this coffee-drinking experience.

It got to the point where we brewed a new cup of coffee for breakfast, lunch, and dinner just to have the kitchen smell like the inside of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. It's as if you put a Snickers in the microwave, melted it, and let it solidify as a candle that can be burned and huffed all day long.

Given the intense nougat and peanut smell that permeated the space like a chocolate love bomb, we expected the coffee to be as good as it smelled. We wanted it to wrap us up in a caramel sweater, drown our sorrows in a nougat river, and revive the spirit of mornings past. But it didn't. Our expectations were probably too high for this artificially flavored peanut and chocolate coffee brewed in a plastic cup.

For black coffee lovers, it's a reprieve from coffee-flavored coffee, but people who love sweet coffee will need to add cream and sugar to it. All expectations aside, it was a warming and comforting presence in our morning routine and something we woke up looking forward to.