It’s not bad when it’s mixed with milk and sugar, but I’m a black coffee kind of guy, where it tastes a bit, I don’t know, bitter and powdery to me in a way that real coffee isn’t. That said, if I just need a caffeine kick, I have no issue with instant.
What is this “instant coffee” of which you speak?
The cheapest canned regular coffee is better than the best instant, in my experience. Instant coffee has a salty aftertaste to me.
Yeah, I meant to mention that ‘powdery’ taste. I don’t find it objectionable though. As I said, I appreciate instant coffee for what it is, and this is one of the characteristics that serves as a touchstone.
I agree with the milk & sugar. Instant tastes better that way. (Or it could be that that’s the way I had it as a child, so that’s the way I think it should taste.) I’m a ‘black-coffee guy’, but since the SO moved in I’ve been using flavoured creamers since they’re here. I do still like coffee black though; especially the dark roast I get.
There are basically three types of coffee available in my country - instant with milk and sugar, Turkish, and espresso drinks. Occasionally you’ll see a French press, but the American-style drip-in-a-bulb is completely unknown. If you order a “black” coffee, they’ll give you Turkish with tons of sugar and maybe some cardamon.
As a result, I grew up drinking instant coffee, and prefer it to the filter I was forced to drink back when I lived in New York.
I drank instant in college because basically my only source of hot water was a Sunbeam Hot Shot. Then I quit drinking coffee for a long time because I thought I hated it. Turned out, I hated instant coffee.
When I was in Egypt, I was always deeply amused that menus explicitly stated “American-style drip coffee” and then the waiter brought the table a French press.
It’s coffee. That automatically makes it detestable.
It is a discernibly different taste but one I grew up around. Back in the old percolator days sometimes instant was just easier under certain circumstances. My grandmother used to put it in her perked coffee. As in perk a pot and then spoon a couple of tablespoons into the pot. Hells Yeahs! I still buy a jar every now and again for afternoon coffees but wouldn’t really consider serving it to guests. <GASP!> Postum however I will absolutely not drink.
I like them about the same. IME, cafe culture came late to South Africa, so I grew up with the instant stuff being the default (or worse, the coffee/chicory mix that was more common in those days)
I grew up in a mostly tea drinking family but I like instant coffee too and usually drink several cups a day. It has to be a good brand though, I’d rather go without coffee than drink a nasty cheaper brand. If there’s any doubt (as in at someone else’s house), I’ll have tea instead :D.
I think what you’re calling French press is known as plunger coffee here. I find it much nicer than instant although I don’t drink a great deal of it, only for special occasions really. Instant is just so much easier.
I don’t like drip coffee at all.
Well I’m British and I can’t bear the stuff. Won’t drink it, won’t have it in the house. Will refuse a hot drink altogether if instant coffee is the only option.
I got used to drinking instant coffee back when Thailand was known as the Land of Nescafe. Seriously, until 1998 you could not easily find brewed coffee. The only restaurants that served it were in the five-star hotels, which made hitting their Sunday brunches a special treat. You really had to hunt to find even drip-ground coffee in a can in a grocery store, and then good luck finding a coffee maker. But we did have a coffee maker, and the wife and I would always bring back a load of drip coffee from wherever we happened to visit – the US, Hong Kong, you name it.
That all changed in 1998. In May of that year, Thailand’s first Starbucks opened, in the Central Department Store’s main branch on Ploenchit Road. It’s still there too, and Thailand now has about 200 Starbucks that I know of. And home-grown Starbucks clones such as Coffee World and many others. And drip cofee is served everywhere, even in Dunkin’ Donuts and Mr Donut now. And specialty coffee from up North is popular. It’s coffee heaven now, unlike those bad old days.
But I still drink instant during the week and save the drip for weekends when the wife stays home.
There was another type of coffee here though, a sort of Chinese concoction called “bag coffee” in Thai due to the bag-type filter – looks sort of like a wind sock – that’s used to filter it. That stuff was strong and cheap. You can still find it around too. I’ve only ever seen it sold in Chinatown or, if outside Chinatown, by ethnic-Chinese vendors.
I can’t stand instant coffee, and would rather do without that try to force the vile fluid down my throat. But… I recently discovered a Folger’s product: basically, tea-bags full of coffee! You make your coffee just like you would make a cup of tea. It is pretty much “instant” in the sense of only taking a moment and making a single cup, but it’s real, not freeze-dried coffee, and actually tastes decent. Can’t remember what they call it, though.
Edit: I remembered! They’re called “Coffee Singles.” Probably wouldn’t keep fresh for decades in a cabinet like instant crystals, but it’s great for camping or when staying with non-coffee-making friends.
I don’t like instant at all. I actually find a good drip coffee maker with good coffee is more to my taste then French Press. I’m not sure why.
Like many I find Starbuck’s to be kind of nasty. So odd many love it and many others like me hate it.
Not really that odd. Starbuck’s coffee used to suck (in my opinion), being over-roasted and all, but since they introduced that Pike’s Place coffee a few years back, they’ve gotten it more under control, IMHO. And I actually really do like their blonde roast coffee.
I tend to prefer coffees that are somewhat midway between a Dunkin Donuts-style drip coffee (which I do like a lot) and the heavier gourmet coffees like Intelligentsia here in Chicago. Their coffees are great, and I can see why people love them, but they’re just too much for me. I feel Starbucks and most middle-of-the-road coffee houses fill that space just right.
Tim, I had forgotten about the Folgers singles. I tried them and they’re pretty good. They are actually a mixture of ground coffee and instant coffee if you read the package - at least they were when I was buying them a few years ago…
I don’t like instant, and I generally buy the cheapest coffee Costco has to offer. I’d drink it in the morning if I had to, but I wouldn’t like it, and would overload it with sugar and milk. In the afternoon or evening I’d go for tea (or anything else) instead of instant.
Coffee story.
Years ago we were vacationing in the Caribbean. Our first morning there we were both a little hung over, so my gf set to work making coffee. Our apartment had a drip coffee maker and filters, and we had purchased a can of coffee.
The coffee tasted horrible. My gf admitted that she had guestimated how much coffee to put in the basket. I opened the top of the coffeemaker and the basket was empty! It took us 15 minutes to realize that the can of coffee was instant.:smack:
I once stayed at a hotel in New York that provided coffee (don’t remember what type it was) for the guests to make. If you doubled the recommended dose and added instant coffee it became almost drinkable. A colleague of mine, who was on the same trip, commented that the coffee had a distinct tang of water.
I have a jar of instant in my office that I bought when our coffee machine broke, but I wouldn’t use it if I didn’t have to (not that the coffee from the machine would be my first choice if there was something better).
I take the Starbucks Via packets with me on the trail if it is a long backpacking run. If it is a short run, I carry a backpacking espresso unit that I can fit on my stove though.