Which instant coffee tastes best for the price? I tried 23 to find out

Which instant coffee tastes best for the price? I tried 23 to find out

A jar of instant is the nation’s favourite way to conquer the day – but which brand offers the finest perk for your pound?

The buzz might be all about flat whites and macchiatos, but good old instant is still our number-one coffee. According to the British Coffee Association we drink 98 million cups of coffee per day, and 80 per cent of us buy instant coffee to drink at home – in fact for nearly three-quarters of us it’s the go-to option. We spend over £900 million a year on jars of the stuff.

You’re right, latte lovers, instant doesn’t taste the same as coffee brewed from beans. But for some of us, it’s a flavour we prefer to fresh ground coffee. For others it’s simply a fast and comfortingly familiar caffeine fix, as it has just as much caffeine as brewed coffee and probably more than a shot of hipster espresso. The best way to counter coffee snobs is to point out that it’s just a different drink altogether.

It’s certainly diverse enough to merit its own category. Prices vary wildly, from 83p for 100g to more than £4, so how much is it worth coughing up for your jar of instant?

Getting to grips with granules

It helps to know what you’re buying. There are, broadly, two different kinds of instant coffee: spray-dried (cheaper) and freeze-dried (more expensive). Both start the same way: by coarsely grinding beans, then infusing them to make a strong coffee.

The difference comes when they are dried. Freeze-drying involves putting frozen blocks of concentrated coffee in a vacuum, which vaporises the water, leaving the coffee solids behind. The gravelly grains are the kind found in most high-end instant coffees.

To make powdered instant, the concentrated coffee is sprayed in a very hot space, so that the water evaporates upwards, while the powdered coffee hits the ground. The spray-drying is a cheaper method, but as the additional heat causes more of the volatile flavours to be lost, it is considered inferior. To make it look “posher” it is usually processed again to make rough granules or “agglomerate”, but essentially the granules and powder are the same product.

So far, so simple: freeze-dried coffee is more expensive but probably tastes better. But to find out more, I talked to Will Little of Little’s Coffee, who make high-end instant coffee – the flavoured ones are available in Sainsbury’s, but for the unflavoured single origin instant coffees you’ll need to head to Ocado or direct at wearelittles.com. At around a fiver per 100g it is way out of the thrifty zone, but I know at least one restaurant critic who swears by it.

According to Little, the reason that most instant coffee doesn’t taste as refined and complex as freshly ground is about more than the process – it’s the quality of beans too.

“You need 3-4kg of green coffee beans to make 1kg instant coffee. But the price of 1kg instant coffee isn’t as much as 3-4kg coffee beans”. No surprise then, says Little, that “the manufacturers who dominate instant coffee aren’t using the same quality of coffee that you’d put in your cafetière”.

Instead, he says, most instant coffee is made with cheap, low-grade beans that wouldn’t be sold as beans, and wouldn’t taste great even when freshly brewed.

Balancing the bitter notes

Then there is the extraction, as coffee experts call the brewing of the coffee. Coffee we make at home is infused for a short amount of time, so that only the nicest flavours are drawn out. Leave it too long and it becomes murky and acrid. But to make instant coffee at the price we want to pay, manufacturers may need to get every scrap of flavour out of the beans, meaning that it’s brewed for longer and can develop astringent or muddy tastes. That bitter note means instant coffee is often better drunk with milk.

The other reason for the bitterness is the type of beans. Most instant is made from robusta beans, a cheaper variety with an earthy flavour, while more expensive arabica, even when lower grade, tends to have a brighter, sharp fruitiness.

Check the label – if it doesn’t say it’s made with arabica, it’ll be 100 per cent robusta. And on the subject of labels, it should indicate how strong the coffee is, often with a number. A couple of brands – Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference and Aldi Specially Selected – specified a 3 or 4 without telling us whether that was out of 5 or 10, which is just pointless.

Of course, it may not be just the flavour that leaves a bitter taste. The coffee industry is notorious for its exploitation of farmers, workers and the environment, and few of the coffees I tried had any kind of certification. Rainforest Alliance, a certification that’s not highly rated by industry watchdog ethicalconsumer.org, was the most used, but props to Waitrose as the only supermarket own-brand coffee I tried with Fairtrade status.

Put to the test

Time to wake up and smell the coffee – and drink it too. Would they all taste the same?

With some trepidation I brewed up 23 different instant coffees as directed on the jars, which was universally 1 tsp (sometimes 1-2 tsp) to a cup or mug of just off-boiling water. I used 200ml of 95C, and set to sipping.

And wow, what a difference. While the various grades, granules, arabica beans, robusta beans, mellow and rich roasts all had distinct characters, there were stark differences between the individual coffees themselves. The best were balanced and satisfying, the worst plain rough, often with a distinctly burnt taste.

The best buzz? You can spend less and still get the flavour you like.

The value-for-money taste test

Nescafé Gold Blend

£7 for 200g (£3.50/100g)

Murky and bitter, like cheap Italian coffee, and with a burnt flavour. The taste you get in a dodgy café where the espresso machine hasn’t been cleaned properly. Awful.

Rating: 1 out of 5

Asda Rich Roast

£2.25 for 200g (£1.13/100g)

A mahogany-coloured coffee that tastes stale, with scorched back notes, like the decades-old jar Great Granny kept on the mantelpiece for special visitors.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Stockwell & Co Instant Coffee

Tesco, 92p for 100g

There’s a faint smell of fresh paint to the granules and the hot coffee is dark and very bitter.

Rating: 1 out of 5

Aldi Specially Selected Colombian Instant Coffee

£2.09 for 100g

A posh-looking jar but the coffee tastes sadly singed and dusty. Classic parents’ evening coffee – complete with a whiff of school caretaker’s cupboard.

Rating: 1 out of 5

Hubbard’s Foodstore Instant Coffee

Sainsbury’s, £1.85 for 200g (93p/100g)

Powder rather than granules, and delivers some bitter grip but very little else. Wouldn’t recommend.

Rating: 1 out of 5

Essential Waitrose & Partners Rich Roast Coffee

£1.60 for 100g

Fairtrade. Caramel notes and a mild flavour. Adding milk makes it a bit bland, however, and the aftertaste is musty.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Sainsbury’s Gold Roast Freeze Dried Instant Coffee

£2.39 for 200g (£1.20/100g)

On the weak side. Reasonably balanced but with a moderate bitterness and not much else going on.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Alcafé Rich Roast Instant Coffee Granules

Aldi, £1.85 for 200g (93p/100g)

The granules smell of boiled-over milk (that’s the caramel note); the coffee brews dark, but the slight bitterness is balanced out by milk. Not much length of flavour though.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Just Essentials by Asda Instant Coffee

83p for 100g

There’s a bit of bright acidity to this but the base note is dull and over-roasted.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Tesco Gold Rich and Smooth

£2.75 for 200g (£1.38/100g)

Made with robusta and arabica beans. A mildly astringent smell to the granules, and the hot drink is flat-tasting, like an office waiting room. A bright gold colour but singed aftertaste.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Morrisons Savers Instant Coffee

83p for 100g

Delivers a delicate balanced flavour with red fruits and caramel notes, although the aftertaste is a bit flat.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Asda Gold Roast Rich and Smooth

£2.75 for 200g (£1.38/100g)

The dried granules have a brighter smell than some but the coffee is murky in colour and very weak in flavour.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Morrisons Full Roast

£3.99 for 200g (£2/100g)

Smells of burnt caramel in the jar. Mahogany colour, reasonably balanced but very one note.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Bellarom Gold Blend

Lidl, £1.99 for 200g (£1/100g)

Brews to a reddish colour and a very rich, Italian-style flavour with a slightly treacly intensity. Has a great length, if you like that flavour.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Bellarom Rich Roast

Lidl, £1.65 for 200g (83p/100g)

The coffee in the jar smells like Crunchie bars. The drink delivers a classic instant-coffee taste, mellow, with a caramel length.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Tesco Classic Mellow and Smooth

£2.25 for 200g (£1.13/100g)

There’s a bit of caramel depth to the coffee flavour and it doesn’t taste burnt, despite that being the smell of the granules. No length though.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Single Origin Costa Rican

£2.09 for 100g

Delivers powerful, fruity acidity but I’m not getting the caramel and chocolate notes it advertises. Takes milk nicely, which does give it more of a chocolatey quality. No balancing bitterness but it’s not at all burnt and the fruitiness really lingers.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Douwe Egberts Pure Gold

Sainsbury’s, £7.20 for 190g (£3.79/100g)

Good acid grip and some roundness with a grapefruit bitterness. Doesn’t taste burnt at all and there’s a pleasant malty back note. Solid stuff, but at a high price.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Sainsbury’s Mellow Roast Instant Coffee

£2.25 for 200g (£1.13/100g)

If the ultra gentle flavour of Mellow Bird’s coffee is your favourite, then this version may not quite have the balancing acidity, but the maltiness is there.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Morrisons Gold Roast

£3.29 for 100g (£1.65/100g)

An Italian-roast style, but with no over-roast “burnt” flavours, this is clean flavoured with some dark caramel length. Similar to Gold Blend but less bitter.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Kenco Rich

Ocado, £3.90 for 100g

Some nice acidity and a rich fruitiness; the end is a very dark Italian-style flavour. You wouldn’t mistake this for freshly ground coffee but it’s not bad.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Mellow Bird’s

Sainsbury’s, £2.40 for 100g

More acidity than the competing Sainsbury’s own-brand version, and no bitterness. It’s quite bland (as you’d expect), but with a roundness and a little malty length. If this is your style, it’s a good buy.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Tesco Finest Costa Rican

£3.35 for 100g

100 per cent arabica coffee with a little bit of bright acidity and caramel notes. A bit weak but the only one that could be mistaken for filter coffee. Not cheap, but better than pricier premium brands.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5