Instant coffee review: no compromise on instant coffee

Text/Consumer Report

What should you do if you can't hold on when you work overtime or late at night? Of course, you can have a cup of instant coffee!

Who accompanied us to stay up late and work overtime during the countless late nights that destroyed our brain cells? Who refreshed us during the countless days of spring and autumn fatigue?

It's instant! Instant! Instant!

But how should we choose from the endless stream of coffee brands? To answer this question, we have done a test for you (including five black coffees and five white coffees!)

Black Coffee

Good coffee requires not only high-quality coffee beans, but also proper roasting. Good roasting can not only make the coffee beans emit a beautiful aroma, but also turn the coffee beans into an attractive dark brown. The higher the sugar and protein content of the coffee beans, the more aromatic substances they can produce.

Unlike Robusta coffee beans, which are more common in instant coffee, Arabica coffee beans grown in the mountains are rich in protein and sugar, and can produce more than 800 aromatic substances during roasting. Arabica has lower caffeine, more flavor, and is therefore more expensive.

Part 1: Raw Materials

The five coffees selected for this evaluation are basically made using advanced freeze-drying technology. And according to the information we can find, their raw materials all contain Arabica coffee beans.

With such excellent innate conditions, the judgment of whether the coffee is good or bad depends on the coffee craftsman’s control over the coffee bean roasting process.

Part II: Tasting

Judging from the appearance of the black coffee after brewing, there is no obvious difference between the five coffees.

In terms of appearance, it's a tie.

Evaluation Dimensions

1. Balance

The most important thing about a good cup of black coffee is balance.

The complex effect of sour, sweet and bitter blending in the mouth is the intuitive feeling that a cup of coffee brings to people. An ideal good coffee should not only have a comfortable and complex fruity acid taste, a little sweetness, but also a proper bitterness to satisfy the picky coffee lovers.

2. Mouse feel

The taste of good coffee should be round and smooth, without any astringency or roughness.

3. Aroma

A rich and fragrant aroma is also essential.

Black Coffee Review

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It is not too sour or bitter at first, but has a light taste. If you taste it carefully, you will find a distinct burnt smell, but also a light fruity aroma. It has a good taste and a good aftertaste.

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The aroma is very strong, which is the first intuitive feeling of this coffee. If you look carefully, you will find that the aroma has obvious fruity aroma; the acidity is more sufficient than the bitterness; the taste is smooth and there is a lingering fragrance. It has a strong coffee flavor and is well balanced overall.

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The taste is not very sour, but there is no coffee flavor, only a slight fruity smell; the taste is very, very bitter, almost the bitterest among these; but it smells very light, with almost no taste; there is not much aftertaste.

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It smells very sour, a bit like Chinese medicine; but it doesn't taste very sour. It has a very obvious burnt taste of coffee, and it feels like it was roasted too dark, and there is no coffee flavor anymore; the taste is relatively rich.

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The taste is like burnt leaves, with a strong burnt smell, which feels the same as Starbucks' usual American coffee; although it is not the bitterest, it is undoubtedly the smokiest one.

Summarize

In general ,

If you are a beginner in coffee, we recommend AGF MAXIM black coffee, which has a fresher taste and is easier to accept.

If you are an advanced coffee lover, I recommend Nestle Gold Medal Black Coffee, which has a rich aroma, balanced taste, and attractive fruity acidity. It is worth careful tasting.

Fancy Coffee

White Coffee

I know that many people don’t like the bitterness of black coffee, but fancy coffee has more choices and sweeter taste, which has won the love of many people. Among the fancy coffees, we chose the most fashionable white coffee as the evaluation object.

White coffee is a modified form of coffee that is roasted at a light to medium low temperature and added with condensed milk and cane sugar, creating a fragrant, rich white coffee that is loved by more people.

The white coffee processed in this way not only retains the original aroma and smooth taste of the coffee, but also has a lower caffeine content, and tastes lighter and milder.

However, the low-temperature roasting process of white coffee requires a higher level of skill, and it takes 3-4 times as long as the traditional charcoal roasting of black coffee.

Part 1: Raw Materials

From the ingredients, it can be seen that Nestlé Gold Medal Collection White Coffee and Maxwell House Pure White Coffee both use milk/milk powder imported from New Zealand, while the other three brands only use non-dairy creamer; and in terms of the choice of coffee beans, Nestlé Gold Medal Collection White Coffee chooses the more advanced Arabica coffee beans, Yichang Old Street and Cobico also mix in Arabica coffee beans, while Maxwell House and Old Street do not disclose the varieties of their coffee beans.

Part II: Tasting

The five white coffees have different colors and appearances: the coffee color of Old Town and Maxwell House is too dark and there is not much milk foam; the milk foam of Kopi Kopi looks very delicate; at the same time, the milk foam of Nestlé Gold Medal Collection Premium White Coffee is also very rich.

Evaluation Dimensions

Because of the three-in-one feature of white coffee, the main focus is on the balance of white coffee, that is, the ratio of milk, sugar and coffee, and the balance between bitterness and sweetness. In addition, there are also taste, aroma and so on.

White Coffee Review

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This coffee has thick and dense milk foam and rich aroma. When you drink it, you will find that it is not too sweet, but has a mellow and smooth taste without being greasy. The milk aroma is pure, probably because of the addition of real imported milk. It also has a relatively rich coffee aroma that is rare in white coffee. Overall, the combination of coffee, milk and sugar is balanced and the proportion is appropriate. It is an excellent white coffee.

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It has a slight burnt smell of coffee; it has a stronger sweetness; it has a lighter aroma; it has a richer taste, but the coffee flavor is not very pure.

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It's quite sweet and milky, but it hardly tastes like coffee... the aroma smells cloyingly sweet, and all in all, it feels more like coffee-flavored milk tea than coffee.

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The coffee tastes a bit light, the milk flavor is stronger, and the sweetness is also very high, making it a bit greasy when you put it in your mouth; although the milk flavor is strong, the mouthfeel is a bit thin; the coffee has a sour taste that comes from being stored for too long.

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The milk flavor is strong, but the coffee flavor is lighter; it is relatively sweet, has a smooth taste, and is a little thin.

Summarize

All in all, Nestlé Gold Medal Collection White Coffee is the winner, and I recommend it to all my friends who like to drink fancy coffee!

The perfect ratio of coffee, milk and sugar makes the taste very smooth and brings an extra enjoyable tasting experience. I would also like to add that when I finished making this cup of white coffee, the whole room was filled with a nice coffee aroma~