Supermarket Instant Coffee Which One Tastes Best

Today we're gonna talk about instant coffee. We're gonna taste a lot of instant coffee and I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little bit nervous. More and more of you have been asking me to do a big taste test to tell you which is the best instant coffee. And to be honest, I was pretty reluctant to do that. I have pretty strong feelings against instant coffee and I'll tell you why. I spent the last 17 years of my coffee career trying to make coffee taste as good as possible and trying to do so in what I hope is an ethical way. That runs contrary to the targets and the goals and the aspirations of instant coffee. Instant coffee first and foremost wants to be convenient and convenience by and large results in a sacrifice of quality. But more than that, instant wants to be cheap. Now coffee's kind of incredible. The idea that some fruit was grown in another country, it was picked, it was processed once, after harvest, processed again before export, it was then imported and it was roasted and it was then ground and turned into a giant cup of coffee and then dried down to a kind of weird powder and then packaged and then shipped and delivered to you and you can drink a cup of coffee for pennies. That's astonishing. But I'm not sure it's good because those companies, those very large companies producing these products aren't sacrificing their profits along the way. But something has to give and by and large, that's producers. These are enormous corporations who are very happy with the neo-colonial system that is coffee production and I'm not really okay with that. Now there are, in amongst the coffees we're gonna talk about today, some more ethical coffees than others, but broadly speaking, instant hasn't been good for producers I think. It's a very personal statement, but that's how I feel. But I'm still curious. If I'm gonna have a bias against something, if I'm gonna dislike it, I probably should be informed and maybe actually something tastes good. Maybe one of the more ethical ones tastes good. That would be kind of okay, but I guess we should find out. So I went to a delivery website and I bought every instant coffee that they stocked, which turned out to be 38 different products, which is a lot more than I expected for some reason. Now there were, I think, about another 12 decaf products available, but I didn't pick those up this time. I felt 38 was enough. Instead of taking each coffee and dissecting it one by one, I thought it would be more fun, more entertaining I hope, to do a giant tournament bracket. So here's what I did. I took a list of the coffees that I had and I generated like a four-digit alphanumeric string for each one to begin a kind of process of turning these into a blind tasting. I then entered those little codes into a tournament generating website and that's how things are gonna play out. So I don't really know what I'm gonna be tasting, but I'll make sure you know what's happening so that you can follow along. Now we've got a slightly unusual number here. So there's gonna be some three-way ties to start with before going ultimately head to head. And that's it. All of these have been weighed out, same amount of coffee in each one, same water in each one, same water temperature, water weight, all that kind of stuff. This is a pretty standardized testing. I'll taste both, I'll pick a winner, and very quickly, I'll tell you why. Before we get stuck in, a quick note on what I'm looking for, what I think is good and what I think is bad. Easier to start with bad. I think bad is strong bitterness. I think bad is kind of woody, earthy, or rubbery kind of flavors that are common in many cheaper instant coffees. Good would be relatively low on the bitterness end or low on the unpleasant bitterness end. A little bit of sweetness would be nice. Tasting of somewhere would be good. Tasting fresh would be incredible. So that's roughly what I'm looking for. Is it harsh and woody and bitter, or does it have some redeeming qualities? Got myself my fancy spoon, was important for tasting. Not essential, but nice. You're definitely out as the harshest and bitterest of them. This one is the least bad of the three. This is very harsh, very bitter, definitely out. This one is less bitter and taste of somewhere. This one wins, it's a bit odd. These two, just a little bit dominant on the bitter front, not that interesting, though. This one probably better than that one. Not a lot going on in this one, to be honest. Neither good nor bad, it's kind of lawful neutral. This one, bit harsh, bit woody. This one, less bitter, which is good. Quite an unusual taste to it, which would be a little bit Marmite for a lot of people. I like that it tastes of something other than sort of harsh, cheap coffee. Winner. This is very classic instant coffee profile to me. This, I find the most unpleasant of the three by quite a long way. I don't really like any of these three. This one has a weird little kind of vanilla note in it that seems almost artificial, but not. Very odd. Unusual enough, I guess, to take the win from this round. Honestly, not a huge fan of anything here. Too harsh, too bitter. Same again here, really harsh, bitter, woody. This one moves forwards on the grounds of being the least bad of the three. This is the last of the three-way ties. We're gonna head-to-heads after this one. Pretty easy and conclusive win for this particular coffee here. Very harsh, bitter. Don't like this one at all. This cup here, actually very similar to this one here. Harsh, woody, earthy, rubbery. That is a clear-cut winner. Now we're into the head-to-heads. Should go a little bit quicker now. This is really weird. I don't know what's going on here, but I'm really definitely not into the flavor profile. This, I don't love this, but it's better than this one. Weird, but interesting. This one's just a little bit more harsh and bitter. Here's my winner. Very harsh, bitter, quite earthy. Not at all that, quite a different cup of coffee. I mean, not bad. Definitely a winner. Not a big fan of either one. This one, just harsher, more bitter. This one is kind of weird tasting. I'm not sure it's good. It's definitely interesting. You. Not a big fan of either one. This one loses out for being just that little bit more harsh, more bitter than this one. This one has a sort of super fake chocolate oddness to it. This one's just a little bit more harsh and bitter. I think this is the winner. Both super weird, if I'm honest. Both of them taste much lighter. I don't really like either of these, but I'm gonna put you forwards. No. Also no. These are both, to me, quite harsh, extremely bitter, extremely woody. I feel like we've knocked out better coffees, but this is gonna progress from this round. So this is better. It's quite chocolatey. It's quite surprising. This is chocolatey too, but also a little odd and vegetably and weird. So this one. Again, it's a difficult round. I don't like either of these at all. This one, I just enjoyed less. It was just flavor-wise a bit mustier, I guess, than this one, which was still pretty bitter. And so having tasted my way through now, 38 different instant coffees, I'm not giving up fresh coffee. There's been some interesting stuff here. There's been a lot of stuff that tasted about what I expected it to taste like. Let's not get stuck on this right now. Let's keep going. Let's find the best one. So let's crack through these 16, get them down to eight. This one's just a little mustier, mushroomier. This one will be the winner. These are both super interesting compared to most of the other ones here. They taste a little bit weaker. They're a little bit less intense tasting. This one is just weird. I remember one of them is an Ethiopian coffee, and I figure maybe it's this one. It has a lot of floral qualities to it that are quite unusual. They don't taste how I expect most Ethiopian coffees to taste, but it definitely tastes complex and quite surprising. This, I think, is just more enjoyable. This one, I think, is just a nicer tasting cup of coffee. Again, both kind of weird in the same sort of way. This one's a little almost tangeriney in a way that I feel weird saying out loud. I don't really like either. I think this one's my winner, just. This one is quite vegetal in comparison to this one. I don't particularly like this one either. I feel like we've knocked the better things out, but it is the better of the two. This one is super chocolatey. Quite a pleasant way in comparison to this one. This is a bit more of a classic instant profile. This one's a clear winner. I would say this one's just a touch more interesting. I don't love it, but it is a bit more interesting than this one. It's that chocolate profile back again. This is almost a little bit more interesting, but the kind of chocolatey-ness of this, I think, kind of wins out in this round. Easy and clear win. This one, I just don't like it. It's very classic, harsh, woody, earthy, bitter, not very good. This is lighter, brighter, friendlier. This is the winner. Now, before we hone in on the final winner, there's a couple of things I want to talk about. Firstly, this video has a giveaway. If you are in need, if you can't afford good coffee right now, but you want some great coffee, there's a link in the description down below. Click to enter. I'll pick 10 people anywhere in the world that I'm able to send coffee, and I'll send you some coffee. 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To get started, click on the link in the description down below, or go to surfshark.deal slash jameshoffman and use code jameshoffman for 83% off and three months free. Thanks to Surfshark for sponsoring this video. So the end is in sight. I still don't know any of these coffees, who made them, where they're from, any of that stuff, but we're gonna get to the end soon. So we've got eight coffees still standing. Let's get that down to one as quickly as we can. Easy win. This one is just much more pleasant tasting. This one's still a little bit vegetably now. It's cooling down a bit more. This one still has this weird fake quality to it that I can't get over, but it is less bitter than this one here. I'm weirded out by how this one tastes. It's the chocolatey one again with a little bit of ashtray in the end. I think more people would find this approachable and pleasant than this one. I'm not in love with either. This one is another chocolatey one again. It's turning a little bit for me now. This one is just a little bit cleaner in comparison, actually a little bit less bitter, I think. So it's the winner. So into the semifinals now. This one is my winner again. It's just a more pleasant cup of coffee in comparison. If you like a splash of milk in your coffee, this is probably gonna be better than this one here. But from a coffee flavor perspective, oh, it's tough. This one just might edge it out a little bit. But it's close. Just know that this one was close. And that leaves us with our head-to-head. Who will be the winner? It's difficult. They're both actually quite a similar profile in some ways. I would say this one edges it out a little bit. It's just slightly more complex than this one. But your preference may be different to mine. I know I've just picked a winner and I don't know what it is yet. It's code N41P. I don't know what that means yet. I'll have to look it up. Has probably been consistently the more interesting of the coffees through this particular process. It's definitely on the lighter side in terms of roast than a lot of the other coffees that we tasted. And it doesn't have the kind of characteristic woody, earthy qualities of Robusta in there. It tastes like it started as a pure Arabica coffee. So for me, that's been the winner. Let's find out what it is and go and get it. And so it was this. This was our winner. Littles Colombian Premium Instant Coffee. It is from Antioquia in Colombia. Clean acidity, nice sweetness is their description. For an instant, that's not far wrong. And if I'm honest, I'm pleased to see a small UK manufacturer doing well in the space. Now, I do stand by my comments earlier on, which is instant is a little snapshot of coffee, but it is not the full picture. Fresh ground coffee would destroy everything here. And I can't emphasize that enough. The difference is night and day. If you enjoy instant coffee, just know that there's so much more joy to be had in your morning cup of coffee in the world of whole bean, fresh ground coffee, brewed well. But hey, I'm not gonna get too preachy. If you follow the channel, you know how I feel about coffee and how good it is and how exciting it is. And this has been an interesting, fun little taste test. So now I'll hand it over to you. Have you tried any of these? Have you tried this? Did you like it? Have you tried any of the others? Were my tasting notes just way out to you? Are you appalled by some of the things I've said or tasted? I'd be really interested to hear. For now, I'll say thank you so much for watching and I hope you have a great day.