I’m often just a little taken aback by what seems like almost unanimous disdain for instant coffee expressed by American members here. Let me explain:
-I like coffee. I really like proper filter coffee. I am a person to whom flavour experiences usually matter somewhat, but I don’t consider instant coffee to be that bad. It isn’t as nice as filter coffee, but it’s not undrinkable, yet the opinion of many US dopers here seems to go as far as declaring that it cannot or should not be described as coffee at all.
I think my opinion is probably fairly representative of the average British citizen, so what’s going on here? Is it really as simple as having been brought up to drink instant coffee, I’ve been conditioned to tolerate it? Or is it, as I’m starting to wonder, that instant coffee in the USA is a markedly inferior product to the instant coffee we are able to buy here?
So, I’m particularly looking here for the opinions of UK or USA dopers who have experienced the quality (or otherwise) of the instant coffee available on the other side. Are they approximately equivalent?
Instant coffee seems to have been much more popular in past years. I remember plenty of ads for it in the 70s and 80s; “Hugga Mugga Maxwell House,” Folgers Crystals and the “That’s funny, he never drinks a second cup of coffee at home” ads, and then that whole chicory fad. I rarely see any these days, though. I suspect that with the dramatic rise in number and popularity of a higher class of coffee houses – Starbucks, Second Cup, Timothy’s, etc. – us North Americans have just come to have a much greater appreciation for good, freshly-brewed coffee. (Starbucks’ overpriced swill notwithstanding.) Instant coffee representing the least desirable form of caffeinated goodness as it does, and North American culture being what it is, instant coffee gets the bum’s rush.
The Folger’s crystals type instant coffee is really horribly bad. But the flavored coffee mixes you can buy are pretty good, a la General Foods International Coffee. I usually mix some of those with real coffee and hot water from the office watercooler if I need a jolt in the afternoon.
Plus, I think, real good coffee is more available here than it use to be, so the difference between the yucky instant and normal sometimes subpar regular coffee is more dramatic.
To me the flavor of ANY instant I have ever had is gross. It has to be covered in lots of cream and sugar. Knowing this why do I ever drink it? To be polite. When someone offers me a cup of coffee in a social situation, I accept, and then find that meant instant. I have my own coffee maker in my office and grind my own beans. I always thought that the minute you had your first really good cup of coffee you would never go back, but that is obviously not true. To each his own.
I once had a sip of instant coffee in Canada, and I once had a sip in England. Both were equally vile, and in both cases a sip was all I could cope with. As far as I am concerned they are equivalent, but I note I haven’t given either a particularly thorough examination so I could be wrong.
I think the difference is entirely due to the vastly greater popularity of brewed coffee here (North America). In England, outside of city centres I really couldn’t find any decent brewed coffee at all. I’m not exaggerating. I lived in Walthamstow (London zone 3/4) and I never had coffee except when I went to the city centre, because the only coffee I could get locally was instant. Same experience exactly when I lived in Bristol, I had to go to the city centre to get actual brewed coffee.
The reason I don’t call it coffee is because when you offer me a coffee, I expect a particular thing (i.e. what I get at a Tim Hortons or Second Cup, something I will enjoy drinking without filling with cream and sugar). When you hand me an instant coffee, I won’t enjoy it at all: it bears little resemblance to anything I enjoy about coffee. If I was having a cigarette at the same time I might be able to mistake the smell for actual coffee, but that’s the best I can do.
I’m going to WAG and say they might be similar, but even the same label will probably be different unless imported directly. This is based on some really noticeable differences in same-label cigarettes and beer from one side of the pond to the other. I remember having to make the switch from coffee to tea when I travelled; besides being harder to get, the Brit idea of coffee just isn’t the same. But I’d wager most Brits would find most Americans can’t make a decent cup of tea, either.
I’d also guess Brits are more inclined to instant coffee because it’s made with the same appliances as tea… which may be why a lot of Americans don’t drink tea, and many microwave their water - electric kettles and teapots aren’t “standard” household appliances.
The only instant coffee I can think of is Folgers and it is disgusting. I would be willing to try the British type if I ever get over to your side of the Atlantic though.
I think this is a very good point. As far a as I know most Brits are horrified with what passes for tea in the US (teabags, microwaved water, etc.) but we locals are perfectly fine with it. I think you are seeing the exact reverse situation in regards to coffee.
To me (an American), instant coffee is hardly worth the effort (I will accept a cup, and drink it with lots of milk & sugar to be polite). There are some “ok” instant coffees – Taster’s Choice isn’t too bad if you make it about triple strength – but what’s so hard about making actual coffee? It takes 3 minutes in the machine. Hardly any slower than boiling the water for instant, and much tastier.
Americans also use leftover coffee for iced coffee in the summer. I don’t know if its caught on these days in the UK, but some friends from Belfast visited me in NYC in the mid-90s and had never heard of such a thing. They enjoyed it though.
Mangetout, I will try to explain the antipathy (ain’t I a gem). I suspect that there are four contributing factors; I’ll need your input wrt how the compare to English culture.
America is a country of coffee drinkers rather than tea drinkers. You would probably be horrified by what many of us do to tea, and we’re equally horrified by what non-coffee-worshipping countries do to coffee. We drink so much of it that we’re sensitive. My grandmother, for example, drinks two pots a day. My dad recently cut down to only two twelve-ounce mugs a day.
We remember our parents and grandparents drinking instant coffee, percolated coffee, battery-acid diner coffee… we also remember that they lived narrow, culturally deprived, intellectually stifled lives. They also annoy us just because they’re our parents. Refusing to drink their instant coffee is part of rejecting their way of life.
We’re a country of New Money and are, most of us, awfully susceptible to luxury marketing. We drink Starbucks because it’s expensive so it MUST be good. We don’t want to drink instant coffee because it’s cheap so it MUST be bad. Just concerns about image.
Many Americans like to drink their coffee black, with zero cream and zero sugar. Without anything to hide the rancid taste, it becomes more important to have good-quality, well-treated coffee.
I used to travel to London a couple of times a year to work in my company’s offices there. They only had instant coffee available, and while I don’t recall the brand, it was pointed out to me that it was one of the better amenities of that office that they got ‘the good stuff’.
It tasted like awful. With a delicate aftertaste of ham. Frigging HAM.
Okay, I had to laugh at this, because of your username.
I like Sattua’s answer. The other piece is that instant coffee has not been normative in the U.S. for some time now. If you’re used to real coffee because that’s all you’ve ever been exposed to, you’re sure to find instant to be weird. Here in New England, coffee basically means Dunkin’ Donuts, and whatever else you may say, it’s real coffee, with strict quality control. And it’s both cheap and ubiquitous.
And I don’t think I’ve ever been in an office that didn’t have some form of real coffee. At my current joint, the coffee is “instant” in the sense of being really fast. But it’s the proprietary Keurig Cup method, which is basically ground coffee vaccuum-packed into a small plastic cup with a built-in filter. It’s pretty decent.
Even though I have never tried European instant coffee, I have to put my $.02 in on this. (Sorry, OP) My mother always drank instant coffee, and drank a lot of it. I grew up not liking coffee and never drank it until I got married. On our honeymoon my husband said “I know you don’t like coffee, but try this…” Kona. Spending several years in Hawaii where Kona is plentiful and reasonably priced, I learned to love coffee. Now we’re back on the mainland where Kona is terribly expensive, so I don’t have it as much. I drink Maxwell House - but it is damn sure not instant. There is so much difference between instant and brewed coffee I just can’t think of a comparison.
And I have had Starbucks coffee - once. I still can’t figure out what all the shouting is about; it’s not that good.
American speaking. Thailand used to be the Land of Instant Coffee. When I first arrived here, real coffee was extremely hard to find, especially upcountry from Bangkok. There just wasn’t much choice. I was living upcountry then, and it was a treat to come into Bangkok and hit Dunkin’ Donuts or a nice hotel for their Sunday brunch buffet just for the coffee alone. All my life before then, I had only drank real coffee; I never knew anyone who used instant, even though it was on the store shelves. It was just strange stuff. But I was forced to drink it here, or do without. I learned to drink it.
These days in Thailand, real coffee is common. Starbucks is all over Bangkok (2 in less than 5 minutes’ walk from my home, and I’m not even in a tourist area) and in many cities upcountry. I remember when the first Starbucks opened here, in August 1998; I fell down in obeisance to the coffee gods, thanking them. Now there’s even local coffee outlets.
But I’ll still drink instant during the week, saving the good stuff for weekends and holidays when I’m home in the mornings with the wife. (We have different schedules.) I have to say, though, that while I prefer the real stuff, it’s still relatively expensive here, even though more plentiful today. So I just scoop a bunch of instant in my mug for a heavy jolt.
Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee; they sell milk drinks and the “Starbucks Experience”. Seriously though, I think Starbucks’ popularity has more to do with marketing than anything. The original Starbucks’ was a unique espresso shop; the mass-marketed, corporate logo stuff isn’t the same (especially now they don’t even really make espresso, they’re just vending machines with faces). It’s sort of like McDonald’s though - it became popular because of what it was, it stayed popular because of marketing.
Canadian here. I drink it black. I grew up drinking instant coffee because the only alternative was percolated. We only brought out the percolator a few times a year, usually when company was over. Once Mr. Coffee introduced the drip coffee maker in the mid-70s we never looked back. It takes just about the same amount of time to make instant as it does to make drip, and drip is a heck of a lot better in taste.
There’s no difference in instant coffee between the U.K., U.S. or Canada.
