I’ve recently been doing some instant coffee with milk and it is really fucking good. Around February I wanted a bit of a classic snack the way my grandparents would, some sweet bread with instant coffee. So I got myself some. I had forgotten the powdered creamer, so I used milk. I was pleasantly surprised.
I think the quality has drastically improved because I feel similarly.
I’ve definetly heard of good instant coffee being (more)? of a thing lately?
Instant coffee can be good[1], and there are even (expensive) specialty instant coffees yes.
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It’s definitely more of a thing now. I think Swift Coffee were the ones that I first started seeing everywhere. They produce their own instant coffee as well as partnering with a lot of roasters. The main difference is that they went for the “quality first” as opposed to nestle, et al, who do super high temperature and pressure extractions followed by spray drying for the cheapest end product.
The downside is that it’s really energy intensive, so it costs like 10x the price. I wouldnt drink it as my daily coffee just because of the price, but it definitely does the trick when I’m traveling to a coffee desert or in the woods.
There are still plenty of mediocre and meh instant coffees out there though, e.g. Dollar store instant, supermarket house brands, I hated Bustelo instant, (Israeli) Elite.
I didn’t like the much-ballyhooed Dutch Douwe Egberts, nor the Japanese UCC and Blendy instants either.
Nescafe Clasico and Tasters Choice taste good, but are offset by Nestle being a classic evil corporation
My favorite least harmful choice wound up being Colcafe Instant from Colombia. Smooth and flavorful.
Well, all that was before I started drinking brewed coffee…