The Good: Easy to prepare, Good scent, Tastes good, Environmentalism of the packaging!
The Bad: Not nearly as many servings as it claims, Does not taste at all like coffee!
The Basics: The Hills Bros. Cappuccino English Toffee flavored drink mix makes a delightful beverage that bares almost no real resemblance to coffee!
As one who loves coffee drinks, it is unsurprising that I would be drawn to the Hills Bros. instant Cappuccino drink mixes. What is surprising, though, is that my first experience with the product is with the English Toffee flavor. After all, there is a Peppermint Mocha Cappuccino in this drink line and that seems like it would be much more my style. As it was, though, my wife wanted to try the English Toffee flavor, so I leapt on that!
Fortunately, it was real good!
Basics
Hills Bros. Cappuccino English Toffee instant coffee is part of Hills Bros.'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 mix is a powder that comes in a 16 oz. plastic package. The mix is very fine and this is the largest bulk I have found locally. While the package claims to contain 17 servings of the beverage, we only got seven out of the plastic canister!
The #2 recyclable plastic container is an environmentally responsible way to make the drink, as opposed to individual packets, which (to the best of my knowledge) do not exist for this product!
Ease Of Preparation
Hills Bros. Cappuccino English Toffee instant coffee mix is fairly simple to make. The single serving is three Tablespoons of the dry mix, added to eight oz. of water. One must measure out and mix this product. Even so, this is a very simple beverage to prepare.
Measure out three Tablespoons into a large – I recommend ten ounces or larger to give it room for one to mix up - mug. Then, simply pour boiling water 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 light tan color to it.
Taste
The English Toffee flavored instant coffee has an aroma that is delightful and very strongly of caramel. The English Toffee Cappuccino mix smells so inviting for anyone who loves butterscotch, toffee, or caramel. There is no scent of coffee in this cappuccino.
The English Toffee Cappuccino flavor is sweet and just like liquefied butter toffee. There is a faint aftertaste of mocha as the beverage leaves the tongue, but the dominant flavor is sweet and buttery. The English Toffee flavor is very much like caramel and this is far closer in flavor to caramel cocoas I have tried, as opposed to any coffee I have ever had.
This beverage leaves a faint, dry aftertaste that fades within two minutes of one swallowing the last of it.
Nutrition
Hills Bros. Cappuccino English Toffee instant coffee is a coffee mix and therefore is mostly lacking in nutritional value. There are 120 calories in this drink, 40 of which come from fat. With 4.5 grams of fat (7% of one’s RDA), the English Toffee Cappuccino is pretty high in saturated fat (3.5 grams!), though it only has 105 mg of Sodium. The 19 grams of carbohydrates prevents this beverage from being appropriate for those doing low-carb diets and the 2 grams of protein are not nutritionally significant. The only vitamins and minerals in this drink are 2% of the RDA of Vitamin A and Iron, and 4% of the RDA of Calcium. This is a nutritionally underwhelming beverage.
It contains milk and soy ingredients.
Storage/Cleanup
So long as one gets Hills Bros. Cappuccino English Toffee instant coffee mix sealed, it ought to stay usable. Visiting my local supermarket, most of the packages of this instant coffee had an expiration date a year away. The canister of English Toffee we picked up in early November had an expiration date of April 5, 2014.
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
Hills Bros. Cappuccino English Toffee is an enjoyable drink that might be a little more expensive (based on not having as many servings per canister as promised) and less coffee flavored than coffee drinkers might want, but it is tasty and worth trying!
For other Instant Coffee drinks, please visit my reviews of:
Taster’s Choice French Roast
Nescafe Caramel Latte Memento
Starbuck’s VIA Columbia Coffee
6.5/10
For other food or drink reviews, please visit my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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