we tend to drink instant cofe in lazy moments, during rush hours (where we don't have time for grinding + French press), or for work; and we don't wanna associate the good cofe experience with not very enjoyable moments. so we do happen to drink instant cofe often enough that the taste matters; we've tried a bunch and here's what I think of them:

  • Nescafe Taster's Choice (Québec): it's the best one so far, not as good as fresh cofe but it's decent
  • Nescafé Spécial Filtre, intensité 6 riche et subtil (France): best one I know of in France, and it's not that good, way worse than Québec's Taster's Choice, but considering it's the best one in France... it's the only one I can "recommend" because the other choices are awful
  • Nescafé Spécial Filtre décaféiné, intensité 7 riche et subtil (France): same as above but decaf, slightly worse taste
  • Nescafé NES (France): just tastes like water, I'm not a fan
  • L'Or (France/Netherlands): really bad, I do not recommend
  • Maxwell House Qualité Filtre (France/Netherlands): absolutely disgusting, the worst of all of them

I do wanna try the Taster's Choice from Germany eventually to compare, hopefully it's a good instant coffee 🙏

the worst instant cofe we have here is Amigo, pretty sure it knocks the rust off nails

    kenko milano (uk) is my pick if i need to drink instant

    it's not so bad

      floti I'll for sure get some if I can find it, but I somehow doubt it'll exist this far east...

        floti I wish we had more variety here than "bad instant, bad instant, Nescafe"
        we do have "variety" in pre-roasted coffee beans bags at the supermarket, and I know of places to get good cofe beans, but nothing for instant 😔 clearly I should look for instant in Germany
        kenco seems to be UK-only, so not available here 😔

          4 days later

          whatever you do, don't drink the instant coffee from Douwe Egberts, it will give you severe plumbing issues.

          also

          drinking Nescafé

          I'd rather not drink coffee from the world's most unethical, polluting and abusing company, even if it happens to taste okay.

            Is it just me, or does this seem like the sort of problem that pushes someone over the edge... into getting a freeze dryer?

              「 Fristi 」 I agree on Nestlé/Nescafé, but two people not buying their stuff isn't gonna make much of a difference, sadly. Governments should be destroying them for what they're doing; but can you believe it; they prefer their own interests instead of the people's.

                  how about store brands? I'm fairly sure they're bad since all instant cofe in france is bad but I wonder just how bad they are compared to the others. I have yet to try the carrefour instant cofe, i see it every time i go to the carrefour city near my workplace but never think of picking it up lol

                    lucihaj I've never seen any store brand coffee; I guess I should try Carrefour's if they have some?

                        lucihaj I've yet to try any store brand stuff. Next time I go to a carrefour city I'll get one and let you know!

                          Hélène It seems there's a whole bunch of them:

                          Franprix lists this decaf, they have some chicory that they dub instant cofe which I think is a crime

                          Auchan has level 4 and level 8 cofe as well as two organic options

                          Intermarché has qualité filtre, régal force et tradition, a decaf, and a discount option

                              Hélène true, sadly enough, I never got how Nestlé somehow got away with a lot of the completely bonkers shit they do (and still are doing). Governments should be literally waging a military war on that company.

                              On the topic of not having enough time to make coffee: does grinding fresh coffee really take that much time? I don't suppose you could look into pre-ground coffee, as that is what I use :thonk: I'd even say my drip coffee machine is particularly fast, probably as fast as waiting for a kettle to boil water for instant coffee. Alternatively if you don't care for a drip machine, regular pour-over is probably only slightly slower than instant coffee.

                                  Hélène I am hundreds of km away from Paris and there is a Franprix 100 meters away from me 😛