Instant coffee is also known as coffee powder and coffee crystals. An easy way to make coffee when we need our fix. Most people think all instant coffee is bad and I’m here today to prove that wrong.
The process of making instant coffee is pretty straightforward, which includes adding hot milk or water to the crystals or powder and then stir it for 10-15 seconds. Once mixed, the coffee is ready, and you can enjoy the drink as well as serve it to other family members.
Many people question the deliciousness and safety of instant coffee powder. Well, let us tell you that it is prepared through the process of spray drying or freeze-drying, and experts say that these two methods are safe and retain a lot of the good coffee flavor we know and love.
There are hundreds of instant coffee brands available on the market. However, not all of them meet the requirements of users because everyone has different tastes and preferences.
So, in today’s article, we will review some of the best instant coffee products available on the market. The selection of products is based on a well-researched buying guide, which we will share in the article later. It will help you choose the best instant coffee. Read on!
Best Instant Coffee – Top Picks
As the name indicates, instant coffee offers the speed of preparation because it dissolves quickly in milk and hot water. It has a lower shipping volume and weight than ground coffee and beans. Another reason people choose this type of coffee is its long shelf life. Keep in mind that you have to keep your fresh coffee beans or grounds dry and stored. Otherwise, it gets spoiled quickly. Read our article here on why and how coffee beans go bad.
Instant coffee reduces cleanup because of no involvement of coffee grounds. Research shows that this type of coffee typically has a lower environmental footprint compared to other methods of preparation. Anyway, let us review the best instant coffee products.
1. Folgers Classic Roast Instant Coffee
Our top pick is Folgers Coffee Crystals, which provide a rich flavor as well as dissolves readily in drinks, sauces, and batters. It means you won’t have to add extra liquid. Folgers has made it for people who want a quick cup of coffee in the morning.
The coffee is perfectly blended and balanced, which provides an excellent aroma that will instantly delight your mind. If you want to make a single cup or a whole pot, you can use Folgers Classic Roast, which is the best coffee to get an instant strong flavor.
2. Starbucks VIA Instant Coffee
Everyone knows about Starbucks – it is one of the most popular coffee brands in the entire world, particularly in the United States. Starbucks VIA Instant Coffee is a freshly brewed drink that you can enjoy throughout the day to keep yourself fresh.
It is one of the best-crafted coffee by professional roasters and blenders of Starbucks. According to the company, the blend of the drink is consistent, which provides a rich flavor of cocoa and toasted nuts.
Starbucks VIA is a unique coffee that provides excellent aroma, flavor, and acidity to refresh your senses. It is a lighter-bodies and mellow blonde-roast coffee that offers a flavorful cup with fresh fragrance and high-quality ingredients.
3. Nescafe Taster’s Choice House Instant Coffee
Nescafe Taster’s Choice is another best instant coffee for people who want to stay fresh and active throughout the day. The reason is that this mildly roasted coffee provides a smooth and refined flavor.
The coffee is easily dissolvable in hot milk or water. It comes in a glass jar that keeps the freshness and aroma of the coffee, which means it has a longer shelf life. Nescafe is a famous brand, and this product from the company is 100% premium and pure made with sourced beans.
The well-crafted coffee beans from Nescafe are easy to make as you just need to add some hot water and stir the mixture. The coffee is smooth and balanced, as well as provides fuller-bodied and bold characteristics that will make a fresh and robust flavor.
4. Nescafe Clasico Dark Roast Instant Coffee
Another product from the world-famous Nescafe brand, the CLASICO Dark Roast Coffee, delivers bold and rich flavor in every cup. The coffee is crafted with 100% pure beans and easily dissolvable in hot water and milk. Thus, you can get a quality taste instantly.
It is no surprise to tell you that Nescafe uses the highest quality and responsibly sources Robusta and Arabica coffee beans, which are roasted carefully. The purpose is to extract the full flavor and fresh aroma. It lets you savor the quality and refreshing cup of coffee instantly.
The dark-roasted coffee has a strong flavor and balanced aroma. When you make the coffee, you will see that it has rich and full-bodied characteristics. You can make the coffee in a few simple steps.
First, you have to scoop one tablespoon of coffee into your cup. Second, add some hot water and then stir it according to your requirements. If you stir it for 15-30 seconds, you will have a strong flavor of the highest standard similar to a real cup of coffee!
5. Cafe Tastlé 100% Organic Instant Coffee
Café Tastlé offers 100% organic instant coffee, which is made from a perfect blend of dried beans. The company uses a natural freeze-dried combination, which is certified as per the standards of the U.S department of agriculture.
So, you can get a strong flavor and fresh aroma in an instant cup of coffee. Café Tastlé uses natural ingredients, which are mostly plant-based because your health is essential to the company. Café Tastlédoes not add any chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides in harvesting the coffee beans.
6. Maxwell House International-French Vanilla
If you want to start your day fresh, then you need to drink Maxwell House French Instant Coffee. Maxwell is a famous coffee brand and roasts all batches to provide a perfect balance of flavor and strength.
Maxwell has different types of coffee for people with different tastes. The instant coffee is available in dark, light, and medium roast coffee. The package contains instant coffee, sugar, and non-dairy creamer to provide finely-tuned sweet vanilla flavor.
There is nothing better than drinking a caramelized, frothy, and creamy coffee in the morning. You can make the coffee easily and quickly by adding the required amount of powder and then adding water or milk to it based on your preferences.
7. Mount Hagen Organic Instant Coffee
Mount Hagen offers 100% organic Instant Coffee that is specially made to keep all muscles in your body energetic and fresh. If you want to boost your neuron with a quick and robust flavor, Mount Hagen Instant Coffee should be your priority.
The coffee provides the highest performance and efficacy that you expect from a high-quality coffee product. It is because the product does not contain artificial ingredients and chemicals. It is 100% plant-based, GMO-free, and organically certified coffee sourced from domestic suppliers.
One jar can serve about 60 cups of coffee, which means you can use it for a month if you drink one cup in the morning and another in the evening. Make sure you add no more than one tablespoon of coffee per cup.
The instant coffee is easy to prepare as you just have to add the required amount of coffee to the boiling water. Next, stir it for 30 seconds so that you get the perfect blend. According to Mount Hagen, if you want the best taste, then add some ice to the coffee. You can use soy milk instead of plain milk or water for a mouthwatering latte taste.
8. Highground Organic Instant Decaf Coffee
Highground offer 100% pure and organic decaf coffee, which is carefully grounded from Arabica beans and roasted to provide a stronger flavor. The Arabica beans are beneficial in terms of boosting neurons in your brain and keep you fresh throughout the day.
It is a certified product that comes from Spain and offers medium roast for a delicious and well-balanced flavor. The product is free from chemicals, environmental allergens, and 100% safe to consume.
Since the coffee is 100% natural and plant-based, it is a healthy choice for weight loss, energy, detoxification, and blood cleansing. So, what would you need other than Highground Organic Coffee that provides a great flavor and a wide range of health benefits?
9. Rapid Fire Ketogenic Instant Coffee
Rapid Fire Instant Coffee is one of its kind. It is a unique coffee product that includes healthy fatty acids and beneficial for people who follow a ketogenic diet to lose weight. The coffee offers a wide variety of nutritional and health benefits.
It is 100% organic coffee that has a balanced blend of grass-fed butter, MCTs, and coconut oil. All these ingredients are rich sources of healthy fatty acids. Besides, the coffee contains Himalayan salt that further enriches it with essential vitamins and antioxidants. Thus, it is healthy and safe to consume.
The blend of essential fatty acids and antioxidants plays a key role in many body functions. They will maintain your homeostatic levels and keep the metabolic processes balanced. Likewise, if you want a creamy and smooth cup of coffee, Rapid Fire is the best you can get.
10. Jacobs Cronat Gold Instant Coffee
Experienced roast experts carefully make Jacob Cronat Gold Instant Coffee. The company ensures to monitor the roasting process so that their customers get the finest quality instant coffee.
It is easy to make the coffee by adding hot water to the cup that contains one tablespoon of freshly flavored coffee. It is a soluble coffee that you can drink in the morning and evening.
The product is suitable for vacations, staycations, and travel because it comes in a small jar that you can carry in your bag. So, whenever you want to refresh your mind and body, just take out the jar and add a tablespoon of coffee in hot water and that’s it, you will have an instant coffee to enjoy.
How to choose the Best Instant Coffee – Buying Guide
An instant coffee tastes great because it is freshly brewed and doesn’t require you to do any work. Most of the products available on the market contain non-organic ingredients, which are not harmful to your health.
Research shows that coffee that contains inorganic or artificial ingredients can even cause cancer. Therefore, the first you need to do is avoid buying inorganic coffee and look for a product that contains natural ingredients.
It is not easy to choose a high-quality instant coffee because each product has its own taste and aroma. Having said that, you will find a wide range of coffee varieties in stores and online shops.
Instant coffee is a great choice for busy people as well as those who can’t afford expensive coffee machines. Again, it allows you to prepare coffee within minutes. You just have to pour the powder or granules in hot water.
Likewise, the aroma and taste of high-quality instant coffee are indistinguishable from fresh beans or grounds. Here are a few factors you should consider while making your selection from a wide range of instant coffee brands. Continue reading!
Types of Instant Coffee
Instant coffee is a regularly brewed coffee, which does not contain a lot of water content. In simple words, it is dried coffee that you can mix in hot water to prepare it within minutes. Removal of water content does not make instant coffee of low quality. It maintains its quality because it is sustainably farmed and organically produced.
If drinking coffee is important to you, then you have to buy high-quality instant coffee in the form of soluble, fine powder, granular texture or crystallized. Besides, you can either buy spray drying instant coffee or freeze-drying instant coffee.
Spray Drying Instant Coffee
Spray drying is an instantaneous method, which involves turning the liquid coffee into dried coffee within 30-40 seconds. Concentrated coffee is quickly sprayed into a chamber that contains hot air, and the process of evaporation starts to form small droplets. Then, these droplets are dried to form coffee crystals. Coffee made through this process is relatively cheaper in price.
Freeze Drying Instant Coffee
Compared to the spray drying method, the freeze-drying technique is much better when it comes to preserving the full flavor of the coffee beans. That’s why instant coffee made through the freeze-drying technique is a premium end product that is pricier than coffee made with a dry spray method.
The process involves freezing and placing the coffee inside a heated drying chamber filled with a vacuum. The coffee warms up through the process of sublimation that yields full, strong, and flavorful grains.
Features of Instant Coffee
While buying your favorite instant coffee, it is important to consider the following elements.
Caffeine
A regular eight-ounce serving of coffee contains 25 milligrams to 170 milligrams of caffeine. Most instant coffee products contain somewhere between 60 milligrams to 90-milligram caffeine.
Although it depends on your personal preferences, it is recommended to choose an instant coffee product that contains 60 milligrams to 90-milligram caffeine because too much caffeine is harmful to your health.
You can also choose instant decaf coffee that only contains two milligrams to twelve-milligram caffeine. It is a mild type of coffee suitable for those who want to avoid stronger flavors and side effects of caffeine.
Roast
Some instant coffee is known as the roast. It is a type of coffee that undergoes the process of roasting to produce aroma and flavor from beans. Most often, the coffee is available in green and brown colors.
Roasting is a sophisticated process that produces coffee oil from beans. It involves drawing the moisture and oil out of the bean. It goes from a spongy green bean into a crunchier and dark bean, which is then converted into powdered form.
There are various forms of roasted instant coffee, such as light, medium, and dark roast. These types of roasted coffee mostly come in Italian or French blends as well as have unique texture and taste. Again, it is your personal preference to choose either light, medium, or dark roasted coffee.
Beans
While choosing your instant coffee, make sure you know the types of beans. In general, there are two types of beans, which are Robusta and Arabica. Many companies use a blend of both Arabica and Robusta coffee to achieve a gourmet blend that has greater concentration.
Arabica plants are produced all over the world and have a unique flavor and aroma. On the other hand, the Robusta bean is planted and cultivated in Asian regions. Robusta beans are popular for their bitter taste and acidic nature.
Final Words
If you are too busy to visit a coffee shop or too lazy to prepare your own coffee, then you can choose instant coffee that allows you to prepare it within a few minutes. Get a cup and add some hot water and coffee to it. Your instant coffee is ready, and you can enjoy it now.
Instant coffee is one of the most popular drinks around the world, and in the U.S, people millions of dollars for this easy to prepare and affordable coffee.
Remember, like regular coffee, instant coffee has many health benefits, such as enhance brain function, boosting metabolism, reduce risks of diseases, and improve liver health. Instant coffee without sugar is a great drink for people with diabetes.