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Reviews
What's in this guide
- Best instant coffee: Saturnbird Instant Medium-Dark Roast (No. 4)
- Runner-up: Nescafé Clásico Dark Roast Instant Coffee
- Best specialty instant coffee: Equator Blend Instant Coffee
- How we tested
- How to choose instant coffee
- Other instant coffees we tested
- FAQs
By Maxwell Shukuya, CNN Underscored
Published 5:13 PM EDT, Thu October 10, 2024
The best instant coffee we tested
Best instant coffee: Saturnbird Instant Medium-Dark Roast (No. 4)
Runner-up: Nescafé Clásico Dark Roast Instant Coffee
Best speciality instant coffee: Equator Coffees Equator Blend Instant Coffee
I’ve tasted a lot of bad coffee, but nothing is as repulsive as a styrofoam cup of lukewarm instant coffee. Whereas excellent pour-over might taste like a balanced mix of caramel, dried fig and chocolate, instant coffee always reminds me of burnt rubber. However, soluble coffee has come a long way since Nescafé’s debut in the 1930s, and industry experts swear it’s become an ultra-convenient alternative to traditional coffee.
Nate Breckenridge, the associate director of coffee at Equator Coffees, attributes this change to improvements in sourcing and processing. Today, producers are diversifying roasts and starting with small batches of high-quality coffee beans, Breckenridge says. There’s also more demand for specialty instant, says Colby Barr, Verve Coffee Roasters’ co-founder and CEO.
“The punchline here is that [the] quality is pretty good, and the convenience is well worth it — don’t let the stigma dissuade you,” Breckenridge says.
As much as I wanted to believe that, I was still skeptical. So, I tackled the problem like any Underscored writer would: I called in 11 of the most popular instant coffee brands and set up a blind taste test with my colleagues at CNN’s Los Angeles office. After drinking way too much coffee, we determined that the following three brands offer the best instant coffee on the market.
Best instant coffee
With its earthy, complex flavor, Saturnbird’s medium-dark roast is one of the few coffees we tested that didn’t taste like instant, earning the highest scores in the flavor, aftertaste and body categories. It’s a bonus that it easily dissolves in cold and hot water and milk, though the company could make its single-use packaging more sustainable.
Best instant coffee, runner-up
Don’t let Nescafé’s ubiquity or low price fool you. Though it was a little weak, our testers found its flavor “comforting and familiar,” making it an easy-drinking option for coffee drinkers looking for convenience and affordability.
Best speciality instant coffee
Coffee snobs who thumb their noses at instant should try Equator’s instant coffee, which features beans from Sumatra, Kenya, Columbia and Honduras. Like most craft instant we tried, this light-bodied coffee avoids the typical bitter, burnt flavors, instead leaning into more complex acidic flavors.
Best instant coffee: Saturnbird Instant Medium-Dark Roast (No. 4)
With its slick packaging and colorful pre-portioned doses, Saturnbird’s line of eight instant coffees looks like something you’d find in an Instagram ad. Each 3-gram dose featured in its “Number Series” comes packaged in bright miniature plastic coffee cups stamped with a number, with no. 1 being the lightest roast and no. 6 being the darkest. Saturnbird also discloses each coffee’s origin and process. Ours, the medium-dark roast, hails from farms in Panama, Columbia and Yunnan, China.
It’s obvious what Saturnbird is doing here. By elevating the design, offering a variety of roast levels and using jargon like “microlot, “craft” and “AA grade,” the brand is trying to transform its coffee into a premium product, shedding the instant coffee stigma.
To my surprise, Saturnbird more or less succeeds. The medium-dark roast instant we tested was the highest-scoring coffee across our taste test, earning top marks in the flavor, body and aftertaste categories.
In her blind assessment, associate testing writer Gareen Puglia said the coffee was fruity without any overpowering acidity — a common problem we found with specialty instant coffees. The coffee finished nicely too, Puglia wrote, adding that it had a pleasant earthy aftertaste. “I’m surprised by how much I like this. I keep heading back in for another sip to find new flavor notes,” she said.
Though other reviews (including my own) weren’t as glowing, I noted that it was one of the few cups of instant that might pass as brewed coffee. “It’s unpleasant and bitter, but I’m not getting any hint of graininess or chalkiness that I associate with instant coffee. I think you’d like this if you’re a fan of French roasts, but it’s too bitter and smoky for me,” I wrote.
We didn’t factor this into our rankings but Saturnbird deserves credit for its dissolvability. All of its crystalline instant coffees — what the company calls “diamond dust” — easily dissolve in cold and hot liquid, which is why Saturnbird calls its product “instant cold brew.”
However, for all Saturnbird does right, we think it fails on one front: sustainability. While the pre-packaged doses are convenient and cute, they’re also wasteful. The mini plastic coffee cups that aren’t recycled will be added to the 450 million tons of plastic waste the world produces every year.
As good as Saturnbird instant may be, that’s a high price for convenience when more sustainable packaging options exist.
Runner-up: Nescafé Clásico Dark Roast Instant Coffee
Thousands of cups of Nescafé are consumed every second, making it one of the most popular coffee brands on the planet. The Nestlé-owned company is also one of the largest instant producers as it buys over 800,000 metric tons of unroasted coffee beans from roughly 20 countries. Suffice it to say that Nescafé has become the McDonald’s of the coffee world.
Despite its dirt-cheap 7-cent per serving price, it was a favorite among our testers who commended its flavor and aftertaste. Puglia described the taste as “rich and full” and “comforting and familiar,” noting it wasn’t overshadowed by notes of bitterness. I was more critical, calling it “more tolerable than good,” but I felt similarly about the inoffensive flavor, describing it as “mild, smooth and nutty.”
My gripe was that it tasted like instant coffee, though others took issue with the coffee’s strength, using words like “weak” and “watery.” We prepared each coffee according to package instructions, but you can’t hold that critique against Nescafé. Under normal circumstances, you could add more coffee for a bolder cup.
Will Nescafé change your life? I doubt it. But provided you adjust your expectations — this is instant coffee, after all — you can’t go wrong with a cup of Nescafé given its price, availability and comforting flavor.
Best specialty instant coffee: Equator Blend Instant Coffee
To my surprise, instant coffee from specialty coffee roasters fared poorly across our blind test. For example, a single-origin instant coffee from the brand Canyon landed in last place. However, Equator and close runner-up Verve were the exceptions to that rule, with the brands nabbing third and fourth place, respectively.
Testers simply didn’t like the acidity of specialty instants, including Equator’s blend, which received a low 2.75/5 score in the acidity category.
“It tastes very little like instant coffee — there isn’t much graininess or chalkiness — but the only thing I’m getting is acid,” I wrote in my notes. Puglia agreed, writing that the coffee tastes “sour.”
But in the balance, body and aftertaste categories, Equator redeemed itself, scoring around a 3 in each, putting it ahead of Nescafé in some cases. This Equator Blend Instant is worth your time if you like sour, fruity light roast coffees. If that sounds like your nightmare, save money and go with our best overall pick.
How we tested
CNN's Los Angeles office blind tested 11 instant coffees, which we prepared according to package instructions.
We tried to make our taste test as fair as possible, selecting a wide range of coffees, preparing them according to package directions and blinding our participants so their feedback would be unbiased.
In front of each coffee, testers gave feedback via a QR code linked to a Google Form, awarding coffees between one to five points across categories. Participants tested coffees without cream or sugar and in one setting, though testers didn’t necessarily test the coffees in the same order.
Although we canvassed people throughout CNN’s LA bureau, many testers didn’t have time to test every coffee. To ensure we didn’t have too little data, we ensured at least three people tasted each one and averaged the scores across the following categories:
- Flavor: Testers awarded between one and five points based on the coffee’s flavor and tasting notes.
- Balance: Balance is all about harmony. The flavors in a well-balanced coffee complement each other, whereas an unbalanced coffee might taste too acidic or bitter.
- Acidity: We didn’t ask our taste testers to rank how acidic each coffee was. Instead, we asked them whether they liked the level of acidity, awarding between one and five points.
- Body: Have you ever noticed when a coffee tastes thick, maybe even creamy? That’s a full-bodied coffee, whereas light-bodied coffees are more delicate and light. Testers scored each coffee based on how much they liked its mouthfeel.
- Aftertaste: Since instant coffees often finish with unpalatable flavors, we asked each tester to consider how each coffee sat on the palate.
In the end, we averaged the point values in each category and added them up, giving us an overall score.
Instant coffee granules varied widely by brand. Here we compared Little's, Maxwell House, Starbucks, Saturnbird and Bustello (from left to right).
How to choose instant coffee
Approach the search for instant coffee the same way you’d look for top-shelf beans: pay attention to the source, Barr says. “Who roasts it, where does it come from, what are their sourcing practices and are they actually coffee people?”
If an instant coffee is from a specialty roaster that cares about its product, and it’s clear where the coffee is from and how it’s produced, then there’s a decent chance the coffee will be good. Breckenridge agrees, adding that “more specific origin info signifies higher quality and more traceability.
“From there, customers should use the same signals they’d typically use to select any coffee — making a selection based on their tastes.” That last point is important. In our blind test, some premium instants from specialty roasters tasted worse than cheap, mass-produced coffees.
Some instant coffees dissolved more easily than others. Here we're preparing a glass of iced coffee with Canyon Coffee's single-origin instant.
Other instant coffees we tested
Verve’s Streetlevel instant was my favorite in the testing pool, earning points for being “acidic, juicy and a tad fruity without being overwhelming.” That was also clear in the score I gave, as I awarded it five points for acidity and four points for flavor, balance and body. But my fellow testers were thrown off by the acidity, with one participant writing that the sourness felt “out of place” even though it wasn’t overpowering. Give it a try if you like sour, juicy coffees — clementine, red apple and honeycomb are the advertised tasting notes.
Like Folgers, Maxwell House has become synonymous with the cheap, mass-produced coffee you might be served at a PTA meeting or a sketchy motel. But when people are ignorant to that fact — say, in a blind taste test — it does surprisingly well. When testers compared it against Starbucks and Blue Bottle, two said it was their favorite, with participants complimenting its “smoothness” and balance.
But Maxwell House was polarizing. While some declared it their favorite, many said its flavor was “bland,” “old fashioned” and “generic.” I was among the haters, writing, “Really bad. Artificial caramel flavor on top of burnt rubber. One of the worst.”
That said, I can see why people like Maxwell House for the same reason Nescafé is popular. At around 15 cents a serving, the long-time brand offers a familiar, smooth and inoffensive cup of affordable coffee.
Little’s is an English brand that isn’t easy to find in the States, but I included it because coffee expert James Hoffmann crowned it his favorite supermarket instant coffee. In our tests, it landed in the middle of the pack. Testing writer, Michelle Rae Uy, said its flavor was unremarkable, and though I agree, I gave it higher marks for its creaminess and full body. “The flavor is quite mild, but that's a good thing because I'm not getting any burnt rubber or bitter flavors typical of instant coffee,” my notes read. It would probably be better with milk.
Given the vast differences in branding and price, you’d never guess Nestlé owns both Nescafé and Blue Bottle. It’s also surprising that Blue Bottle, which brands itself as a specialty coffee roaster, would score lower on our taste test. But that’s the reality.
The posh, Nestlé-owned roaster’s instant espresso averaged around a 2.5 out of 5 across our categories, with most participants complaining about its strength and bitterness. “If you were not awake before you tried this, you are now,” one tester exclaimed, adding that it was “very strong.” However, we admit that comparing Blue Bottle’s instant with other competitors isn’t entirely fair because it’s meant to be mixed with milk (for a latte) and because it’s espresso. For what it’s worth, a few people gave it high flavor scores, with one participant writing that it tasted like “properly brewed” coffee.
If you like coffee that tastes like tea — light-bodied, dry and slightly acidic — Intelligentsia’s instant is worth a look. We found it too acidic (surprise, surprise), but it scored relatively well in the aftertaste category. Puglia, for example, wasn’t a fan but could appreciate that the flavor was balanced. “This might be a great cup of coffee … just not for me,” she wrote. I had a similar reaction. While it didn’t taste like instant coffee, I didn’t enjoy the acid-forward flavor or lack of body.
With Starbucks’ “premium” instant, the commercial roaster upholds its reputation for making burnt, bitter-tasting coffee. Uy wrote that it was the “most bitter of the bunch,” while I said that it tasted like airplane coffee with notes of “burnt rubber.” That said, a few testers didn’t mind it, with positive comments ranging from “not bad” to “simple and effective.”
Despite advertising itself as “espresso-style” coffee, Bustelo’s instant fell short because of its weak flavor. “Like a lot of instant coffees, it's inoffensive but not exactly enjoyable since there aren't any identifiable flavors besides a grainy coffee-ish flavor,” my notes read. Puglia had similar feedback, writing that it tasted “more like water.” Perhaps Bustelo could have scored higher if we’d made it stronger, but as we explained above, we prepared each coffee according to package instructions.
I was shocked to see Canyon Coffee’s single-origin instant at the bottom of our list. You’d think that an expensive single-origin coffee from a respected roaster would taste good. Unfortunately, it was our testers’ least-favorite instant by far, earning (or tying for) the lowest scores in each category. The issue was the acidity. “Why is it so sour?!," Uy wrote in her notes. Puglia had a similar reaction, describing the first sip as a “sour punch.” At more than $3 a serving, it was also the most expensive coffee we tested.
FAQs
Instant coffee is typically a concentrated, pre-brewed coffee that’s been turned into coffee granules or powder.
Instant coffee producers start with roasted coffee beans. But instead of delivering a fresh bean or ground coffee to the consumer, producers brew a coffee concentrate and then dehydrate or freeze-dry the results, Breckenridge says. The consumer then adds water (or milk), rehydrating the pre-brewed coffee.
The most obvious difference is that brewed coffee is made fresh, while instant coffee is brewed, preserved and rehydrated. This preservation process accounts for instant coffee’s inferior flavor, as the dehydration process can “remove some of the essential oils that give coffee its flavor,” Barr says. Instant coffee also contains slightly less caffeine per volume than brewed coffee.
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