Starbucks instant coffee reviewed, almost nauseating | Hacker News Reader

Starbucks instant coffee reviewed, almost nauseating

guardian.co.uk

14 pointsthomas15 comments

Pre-ground coffee and a french press is still damn good and damn near as quick to make as instant. I really don't understand drinking instant coffee at home -- in a war zone maybe (then again, even in Blackhawk Down I think he got a brew going, didn't he?)

in a war zone maybe

Well, I am in warzone, I'm founding a startup! ;-) No, on a more serious note: I'm drinking the instant stuff (Nescafe Gold, fwiw) for half a year since my coffee-maker broke down - and I actually like it.

I find it tastes merely different, not necessarily worse, than the stuff that my former capsule machine ("Dolce Gusto") and the regular powder-through-filter setup spit out.

It's obviously no comparison to a fullblown espresso maker that meals the beans on the fly but since I can't afford the latter I don't find the instant stuff much worse than the listed alternatives. All of them merely taste reminiscent of real coffee anways - so I can just as well drink the cheapest option.

It appears to me that SBUX has lost sight of the premise (at least in my opinion) that what they're selling is an experience, and people pay for the experience by buying a coffee. As with any other franchise or franchise-like operation, the "secret sauce" is to make the experience bland enough for it to appeal to a large segment of the population, and consistent enough that people will have their expectations met regardless of which location you visit.

I seem to recall that their CEO wrote a scathing internal memo a while back about where the company has gone, but as a publicly traded entity they've become conditioned to see profit as their only goal.

BTW, I'm a semi-fan, at least to the extent that I needed to hang out somewhere for a while today, and the first place that came to mind was SBUX (I wanted wifi, and coffee was welcome too).

OT, but the key to instant coffee is to "brew" it with milk. It kills the acidity and makes it somewhat drinkable.

Of course, if you don't have some sort of way to make one cup of real coffee, you don't deserve good flavor ;)

(I use this: http://www.bodumusa.com/shop/line.asp?MD=1&GID=3&LID... ... and now you have my session id :P )

I've been using the AeroPress: http://www.aerobie.com/Products/aeropress.htm -- an odd gadget from the inventor of the Aerobie. It's pretty quick to use, results are off in the direction of an Americano, and it's really easy to clean. I'm happy with the coffee it makes, though I'm no expert.

I just started using one about a month ago. I love it. Coffee is good to great. Previously I used a French Press with decent results, but didn't enjoy the sludge and cleanup.

You can hack the Aeropress by inverting it: http://coffeepress.blogspot.com/2006/12/aeropress-redux.html...

Ah, I've been meaning to try one of those.

The only thing I don't like is that it needs a paper filter. I know that I will run out of them at 3am one morning, and will have to go to sleep instead of drinking coffee. The horror!

A regular french press is pretty easy.

Why didn't they just put coffee grounds in a tea bag and sell it that way? It seems like it would produce instant coffee almost on par with regular drip. They might have to adjust the density of the bag's paper, but that's about it.

If you google "coffee tea bag" the first link explains why not: "Unlike tea leaves, coffee grains release little flavor unless they come into contact with water that is not only hot but also agitated. The water may simply flow through a sock filled with ground coffee, or it may be thrust up through a percolator, but it must be moving. This limitation has traditionally made brewing coffee by the cup messy and inefficient."

You can buy disposable tea bags in Japanese grocery stores which are less dense than most paper tea bags. I have often made instant coffee by putting grounds in these bags.

You are correct that you must "agitate" the water.. You have to stir it for a few minutes. I think it tastes better than instant coffee (which seems to have some sort of bizarre chemical taste, at least to me).

Unlike tea leaves, coffee grains release little flavor unless they come into contact with water that is not only hot but also agitated. The water may simply flow through a sock filled with ground coffee, or it may be thrust up through a percolator, but it must be moving.

I'm not sure I buy this explanation. How does the coffee know if the water is moving? Also, the water isn't moving in a french press, but it still brews excellent coffee.

(I think the real answer has to do with the rate of diffusion and the saturation of the coffee/water solution. Near the grounds, the saturation is higher, and that water will extract less coffee from the grounds. Move that saturated water away, and more coffee can be extracted. I guess the teabag makes that diffusion even slower, resulting in incomplete extraction.)

This limitation has traditionally made brewing coffee by the cup messy and inefficient.

I also don't buy this. Single-cup french presses and drip aperatuses are not particularly messy or inefficient. You put a spoonful of coffee in them, add boiling water, and wait. Rinse, repeat. :)

If anyone wants great instant coffee try cold-brew, you can buy it in refrigerated condensed liquid form, just search Amazon for N.O. Brew, I used to swear by this stuff. It was also great for making cold coffee drinks.

This could be the best instant coffee ever developed, and it would still be branding suicide. It would be like Coach bringing out a Wal-mart exclusive line.

Starbucks is, at its heart, an aspirational brand. There's nothing aspirational about instant coffee.

Whether the product does or does not suck worse than Nescafe really doesn't matter. Competing with Nescafe is a problem in itself.

I don't understand why Starbucks would release instant coffee at a time when it is being criticized for getting too far away from its core business, namely, good coffee. The title of this post might as well read, "instant coffee: almost always nauseating." This is a huge error on Starbuck's part. It's not going to kill the brand, obviously, but it can't help.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com