Instant Coffee Makes A Comeback

Instant Coffee Revival Lex Loeb Contributor Network . In some parts of the world instant coffee is more popular than brewing a fresh pot or using a complicated espresso machine. With out grinding coffee beans, roasting them fresh , brewing or pressing coffee you can have a super fast cup using common store brand instant coffees and a microwave oven. Starbucks introduced their own premium instant coffee brand calling attention to the nearly forgotten instant freeze dried coffee craze of a few decades ago. The best store bought brands are Nestle's Nescafe' Classico, Nestle's Taster's choice and Kraft's Instant Yuban with it's 100% Arabica beans. These come in both regular and decaf varieties. Generally the higher priced instant coffees in the super market are the better varieties. There is even one variety that makes instant espresso. These instant coffees are not to compete with coffee made in high end cafe's or that which you can make with fresh ground coffee beans. This is coffee that is ready in a minute and a half to two minutes that costs probably no more than 1/10 what it costs to buy a coffee from a café on the go. The trick is to have everything you need to be ready so that you can make one just before leaving the house so you don't need to spend an extra $1.70 or more to buy one ready to go at a café. The Starbucks invention of the to go coffee cup with the sip-able plastic top is something you can duplicate at home buy buying paper cups and the lids where they are available. The cups are available at wholesale food stores including Costco but the lids maybe harder to find. Serving the coffee to go in that manner is a bigger innovation than you might realize because that is one of the main things that makes buying coffee to go at a café worthwhile. It is all about convenience. If you are sitting at home you can use a porcelain mug but on the go you need one of these cups that will fit in your car's beverage holder. The paper cup also offers you a warm feeling on your hands you don't get from a ceramic cup. Ingredients you need to make instant coffee drinks then are just the instant coffee of your choice, milk or skim milk if you use it and water. Get instant coco if you like mochas. A microwave works best to do one single cup at a time. Just add a heaping teaspoon of the instant coffee and then either water or half milk and half water and microwave that for 1 and a half minutes to two watching the coffee to be sure the milk does not boil over if it is added. Leave room in the cup to add extra milk or water to cool off after stirring once. Then it is ready to go and you instantly save money and can hardly tell that it not a café made coffee. Fat free and full fat whipped cream can be found in spray canisters at super markets if you want a foam like topping. Trader Joe's actually carries or carried a spray on coffee foam. Add coco powder if you like mocha before adding the whipped cream and then cover the cup with the plastic sipping cover and it is ready to go. Once you have this coffee in hand the temptation to spend $2 or more on one later at a café is a lot easier to resist. You can get the cup size you want with enough cups to last for months when you buy them in bulk or just save cups and lids from the cafe's when you do buy them out , wash out and re-use and become a champion of instant coffee on the cheap. Saving $2 per cup over buying out at a café in exchange for just a couple of minutes and no more than 30 cents worth of ingredients including the cup is one satisfying cup of instant coffee. . Close