Instant coffee vs Starbucks/Nero/Costa coffee

[mendhak]

Do you find that your Starbucks/Nero/Costa/CoffeeShopOfYourChoice coffee tastes better than instant coffee?

I'm thinking it's purely psychological. I don't taste a difference, so I can save some money by sticking to instant.

[Arve K.]

No, they all taste crap!
Just regular for me please

[Arve K.]

Oh wait, maybe instant coffee IS the same as regular coffee??? My english no good you know...

[oceanebelle]

I cant taste the difference as long as frappucino is out of the question.

[baja_yu]

How long is an 'instant' really? To me it would be like the replicator in Star Trek. Captain Picard says "Tea. Earl Gray. Hot" and boom!, there it is. With this instant coffe I still have to open, pour, add water (possibly boil it), stir...

On a side note, we don't have Starbucks. Only Costa, but for what they are charging I'd expect it to come with a lobster meal.

[si_the_geek]

I can taste the difference, and have proved it in a 3-way blind test (instant/ground/non-chain coffee shop). In my view the best quality is home-made ground coffee, then a non-chain coffee shop, then Starbucks etc, then pubs/restaurants, then instant.

While I have those preferences for quality tho, it isn't a big enough deal for me to regularly spend the extra time and money - so I generally drink instant.

Oh wait, maybe instant coffee IS the same as regular coffee??? My english no good you know...

Instant is powder that you add water to, but "proper" coffee (like at Starbucks etc) is beans that need extra work.

How long is an 'instant' really?

The worrying thing is that you can buy pre-made coffee in cans, which somehow get heated as soon as you open them - but I haven't tried them because the price works out about the same as (or higher than?) Starbucks etc, and I strongly suspect that the quality is lacking.

[baja_yu]

Oh, you're right Si. I forgot about those. Never had the chance to try one.

Here's wiki info on how it works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-he...can#Technology

[DeanMc]

I agree, I drink coffee black on its own and I can tell the difference.

[mendhak]

I can taste the difference, and have proved it in a 3-way blind test (instant/ground/non-chain coffee shop). In my view the best quality is home-made ground coffee, then a non-chain coffee shop, then Starbucks etc, then pubs/restaurants, then instant.

While I have those preferences for quality tho, it isn't a big enough deal for me to regularly spend the extra time and money - so I generally drink instant.
Instant is powder that you add water to, but "proper" coffee (like at Starbucks etc) is beans that need extra work.
The worrying thing is that you can buy pre-made coffee in cans, which somehow get heated as soon as you open them - but I haven't tried them because the price works out about the same as (or higher than?) Starbucks etc, and I strongly suspect that the quality is lacking.

How did you do the test? Did someone make or get the coffee for you? I'd be interested in trying this out at work.

[oceanebelle]

strong cafe-chain coffee gets me overdosed on caffeine. That was 4 years ago. I can't remember having another one after that.

[Quiver318]

Do you find that your Starbucks/Nero/Costa/CoffeeShopOfYourChoice coffee tastes better than instant coffee?

Some coffee is dramatically different than instant.

I found a shop that roasts their own coffee, on-site. No coffee in the shop is over a week old. But, when coffee is roasted, tossed into a grinder, and brewed on the same day, the flavor is a nearly erotic experience.

[si_the_geek]

Agreed... the best coffee shop I've been to did similar, but due to the water heating being in an urn (so it is kept hot for up to an hour) it wasn't as good as home made using beans from the same shop.

How did you do the test? Did someone make or get the coffee for you? I'd be interested in trying this out at work.

They did, and they put all 3 coffees in identical mugs.

Of course which of the various options you can compare properly depends on what facilities/stores you've got very locally, otherwise the temperature gives it away.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Starbucks coffee tastes like stale urine. It is terrible and shouldn't even be called Coffee.

Nero/Costa are drinkable.

Some Instant is ok, although not normal Nescafe which tastes pretty terrible too.

Proper ground Coffee is the best, although i dont drink it all the time i like my Tea !

[BackWoodsCoder]

The worrying thing is that you can buy pre-made coffee in cans, which somehow get heated as soon as you open them - but I haven't tried them because the price works out about the same as (or higher than?) Starbucks etc, and I strongly suspect that the quality is lacking.

They're not bad, but not worth the cost IMO. Our local grocer carried a few varieties for a while and I'd pick a couple up for the mornings I was running late and didn't have time to make a pot at home in the morning. The coffee was good, but the hot chocolates were my favorite to drink.

In the office we drink crappy commercial coffee (maxwell house, folgers) because it's cheap and we go through 3-4 pots a day. At home I keep a bag of whole beans from a local coffee shop that roasts their own beans. I used to order beans from a shop in my hometown but it became too expensive to do so (even though their coffee beats anything I've found in my area now). Starbucks is overpriced crap, same thing with dunkin donuts coffee. I still don't understand why people pay 9-10$ a pound for DD coffee when the stuff tastes just as good as a 3 dollar can of folgers.

If there's one thing I miss that I can't get in my area at all it's WaWa's hazlenut coffee. Liquid crack, every time I visit home I buy a pound or two to bring back. I normally don't like flavored coffee's but this is definitely the exception to the rule heh.

[si_the_geek]

I've had coffee with a hint of hazelnut before, and it was good... but it was a Starbucks special, so it wasn't as good as it could have been, and wasn't around for long. I haven't seen that kind of thing anywhere else tho, so I'll just try to forget about it!

[BackWoodsCoder]

http://www.wawa.com/WawaStore/storeproduct374.aspx

Well looks like they finally got an online shop running! Too bad they can't ship me a meatball sub to go with the bag of coffee i just ordered.

[kleinma]

what are Nero and Costa? chains somewhere?? I can't recall ever seeing one of these.

Of course I do have (and this is actually no exaggeration) 6 or 7 Dunkin Donuts within a 5 mile radius of my house. There are starbucks, but not as many.

[si_the_geek]

Yes, Nero and Costa are European based chains that are similar to Starbucks (and in my opinion, they both have better coffee than Starbucks).

We don't have Dunkin Donuts over here, but I probably have about 20 chain coffee shops within a mile of my place - which isn't surprising given that I am 5 minutes walk from the centre of town, and therefore have hundreds of stores of different kinds within that radius.

[kleinma]

yeah in terms of places I can get coffee around me (and I don't live in a city) easily there are 100 places within a 5 minute drive.

I happen to love Dunkin Donuts coffee, but I am also pretty sure they put something adictive in it beyond caffene.

Starbucks is pretty much baby Diarrhea.

What is sad is that there are also no DD in Seattle, where starbucks is based. They do however have an intersection in Seattle that has a starbucks in 2 of the 4 possible corner storefronts...

[Quiver318]

Starbucks is pretty much baby Diarrhea.

I think Starbucks ruins their high quality products with their roasting curve. In effect, they roast it until they burn it. The final cup tastes like strained charcoal. But, I would imagine their coffee is the finest quality arabica beans before they turn the flame thrower to them, and destroy them.

Unless something is changed, I believe Waffle House (a 24 hour American short-order resturant) serves the worst coffee on Earth. It is swill. Not only do they purchase cheap Robusta beans, but their brew is allowed to sit on the hot plate until it becomes a tar syrup. That is, I don't think they rotate the pots out every 15 minutes, like Starbucks might during the day.

I prefer a light roast arabica coffee, myself. My favorite beans are from Kona.

Q