The Good: Easy to prepare, Great taste
The Bad: Fairly expensive (especially in prepackaged tubes), Environmental impact of packaging
The Basics: Taster's Choice 100% Colombian instant coffee is, hands down, the best instant coffee option for serious coffee drinkers, despite the environmental and financial impact of the single-serve tubes.
I love coffee. I love coffee so much that I was surprised that my wife ever got me a whole bunch of Taster’s Choice instant coffees for me to review. My wife knows me, she knows I love coffee and I love to review, so she must have figured that I could combine the two. This has led, for the most part, to a series of reviews where I try to find synonyms and euphemisms for “disappointment.” With Taster's Choice 100% Colombian instant coffee, all that changes. The 100% Colombian coffee blend is the ideal instant coffee for serious coffee-drinkers who need an instant coffee for travel, hiking, convenience, whatever. In fact, were it not for the packaging and expense issues, this might well have been a perfect coffee!
Basics
Taster's Choice 100% Colombian instant coffee is part of Taster's Choice's new premium instant coffee line and one suspects that the company is trying to compete with the flavors from the International blends instant coffee line. This flavor does. In fact, it surpasses many of them! This mix now comes in plastic containers easily found in the grocery store, though for my review, I was provided with premeasured samples which each create a 6 oz. cup of coffee.
Ease Of Preparation
Taster's Choice 100% Colombian instant coffee mix is exceptionally simple to make. The single serving is the packet and six oz. of water. There is no measuring of the product involved, though with the canisters one needs to measure out the Tablespoon of instant coffee. This is a very simple beverage to prepare.
The top of the single-serve packet has a perforated edge and one need simply tear open the top, which is quite easy, and pour the contents of the packet into a mug that is at least eight ounces large. Then, simply pour hot water - near boiling, but not actually boiling as boiling water cooks the ingredients as opposed to simply dissolving them - over the powder and stir. Stir the powder until there are no blobs of coffee granules visible in the water. The beverage will have a dark brown color to it and it will be fairly translucent.
Taste
Taster’s Choice 100% Colombian Gourmet instnant coffee smells very dark. In fact, compared with a standard dark roast coffee I had around, the 100% Columbian smelled deeper and richer. The aroma effervesces to make the consumer anticipate a very strong black cup of coffee.
And the 100% Columbian delivers. This coffee is strong and bitter. When it washes over the tongue, it buries any other taste left in the mouth. This is a forceful, dark coffee that is the embodiment of what coffee ought to be. The 100% Columbian leaves a slight aftertaste that is dry and characteristically bitter as well.
The use of sugar or cream with the 100% Colombian instant coffee makes a mockery out of additives! Unless one uses an obscene amount of creamer or sugar, it does not truly cut through the powerful coffee flavor of this beverage. This is a great coffee for those who love their coffee dark and black.
Nutrition
Taster's Choice 100% Colombian instant coffee is a coffee mix and therefore is entirely lacking in nutritional value. There are no calories or fat in this drink, though there is caffeine. How much is a bit of a mystery to me. This is not a beverage intended to be a health drink or one one might survive on.
Storage/Cleanup
So long as one gets Taster's Choice 100% Colombian instant coffee mix in the packet, it ought to stay usable. Visiting my local supermarket, most of the packages of this instant coffee had an expiration date over three years away. One assumes it will last quite a while and dissolve appropriately when one attempts to use it. The packets, for those of us who consider the environmental impact of such things, are terribly wasteful and expensive. The foil/plastic wrappers are not recyclable anywhere I've been.
Cleanup is very easy as well. If the product spills while dumping it into the mug, simply wipe it up or brush it up with a dry or damp cloth. If it has already been reconstituted with water into coffee, simply wipe it up. Light fabrics are likely to stain if this gets on them, in which case consult your fabric care guide to clean it up.
Overall
Taster's Choice makes an incredible cup of coffee with its 100% Colombian blend. This might well be the gold standard of instant coffees!
For other Taster’s Choice Instant Coffees, please visit my reviews of:
Decaffeinated
House Blend
Original
9/10
For other food or drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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