Flavorful Enough, But Pricey In The Packets, Hills Bros. Cappuccino Irish Crème Is Enjoyable!

The Good: Easy to prepare, Good scent, Tastes good.
The Bad: Poor environmentalism of the single serve packages, A bit pricey by the single-serve packets
The Basics: Hills Bros. has a flavorful winner with its Cappuccino Irish Creme flavored drink mix!


It is worth noting up front that while I enjoyed the Hills Bros. Irish Creme flavor instant cappuccino, I encountered it in its single serve packet form. From there, I found myself underwhelmed both by the environmentalism and expense of the packets. I understand that this product is available in canisters and in that form, I would certainly recommend it higher than the individual packets. But, for those for whom expense and environmental responsibility mean nothing, regardless of the form one finds the Hills Bros. Cappuccino Irish Crème, the company has produced a delightful and delicious beverage!

Basics

Hills Bros. Cappuccino Irish Creme 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 .95 oz. paper envelope for the single serving. The single serving packages come three to a box. The mix is very fine and I could not find it in bulk locally, though I understand it is available in that form.

The individual packets are environmentally irresponsible and proportionately exceptionally expensive.

Ease Of Preparation

Hills Bros. Cappuccino Irish Creme instant coffee mix is fairly simple to make. The single serving is one packet of dry mix, added to eight oz. of water. One does not need to measure out the product, but they need to mix this product. This is a very simple beverage to prepare.

After pouring the mix into a mug, 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 very light tan color to it; it is almost white it is so light.

Taste

The Irish Creme flavored instant coffee has an aroma to it that is delightfully spiced. While it does not smell at all like coffee, it smells very much like rum cake and cream, which might be the embodiment of the scent of Irish Crème!

The Irish Creme Cappuccino flavor is very sweet, with a creamy vanilla aftertaste. The cinnamon and vanilla flavor is instantly recognizable to the tastebuds as Irish Crème; it is a flavor which defines itself and from the first scent to the last sip, this beverage embodies that flavor wonderfully.

As the Irish Crème Cappuccino cools, the sweetness fades and the beverage takes on a much drier flavor. It is not at all unpleasant, but the coffee flavor asserts itself a little bit more when the drink is colder and the result is a drier beverage. The dry aftertaste dissipates within a minute, though.

Nutrition

Hills Bros. Cappuccino Irish Creme instant coffee is a coffee mix and therefore is mostly lacking in nutritional value. There are 120 calories in this drink, 45 of which come from fat. With 5 grams of fat (8% of one’s RDA), the Irish Creme Cappuccino gets all five grams from saturated fat, 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 gram of protein is not nutritionally significant. The only vitamins and minerals in this drink are 2% of the RDA of Calcium. This is a nutritionally underwhelming beverage.

Made primarily of sugar, creamer, and nonfat dry milk, the Irish Creme drink is not Vegan compliant, but is marked as Kosher. It contains milk and soy ingredients.

Storage/Cleanup

So long as one gets Hills Bros. Cappuccino Irish Creme 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 box of Irish Creme I picked up in early December had an expiration date in February 11, 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 unlikely to stain if this gets on them, but consult your fabric care guide to clean it up if that occurs.

Overall

Hills Bros. Cappuccino Irish Creme is good and anyone who enjoys other brands’ Irish Crème instant cappuccino would do well to try Hills Bros., though they might want to go ahead and get the canister instead of the packets!

For other Instant Coffee drinks, please visit my reviews of:
Taster’s Choice French Roast
Nescafe Caramel Latte Memento
Starbuck’s VIA Columbia Coffee

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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Seasonally Available Blah: Hills Bros. Pumpkin Pie Instant Cappuccino Disappoints.

The Good: Easy to prepare, Good scent, Tastes good.
The Bad: Poor environmentalism of the single serve packages, Does not taste at all like coffee . . . or pumpkin pie!
The Basics: The Hills Bros. Cappuccino Pumpkin Pie flavored drink mix is one of their lesser outings . . . fortunately, it is only seasonally available!


In trying to surprise my wife for the holidays last month, I tried to find a few gifts she knew nothing about. One of them was a Hills Bros. multipack of instant cappuccinos. Given how much she enjoyed the English Toffee Cappuccino (reviewed here!), I thought the four pack of individual servings of the coffees would be a slam-dunk gift. In fact, one of the key flavors that sold me on the multipack was the limited edition Pumpkin Pie flavor instant cappuccino. In retrospect, perhaps the multipack is the only way they could unload the flavor because it does not live up on the flavor front!

Basics

Hills Bros. Cappuccino Pumpkin Pie 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 .95 oz. paper envelope for the single serving. The single serving packages come three to a box. The mix is very fine and I could not find it in bulk locally. That is fine, though, because the cappuccino is not one I would want to bulk up on.

The individual packets are environmentally irresponsible and proportionately exceptionally expensive.

Ease Of Preparation

Hills Bros. Cappuccino Pumpkin Pie instant coffee mix is fairly simple to make. The single serving is one packet of dry mix, added to eight oz. of water. One does not need to measure out the product, but they need to mix this product. This is a very simple beverage to prepare.

After pouring the mix into a mug, 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 very light tan color to it.

Taste

The Pumpkin Pie flavored instant coffee has an aroma to it that is lightly pumpkin pie spiced. Even when this is steaming hot, it is not the most aromatic blend. It does not smell at all like coffee.

The Pumpkin Pie Cappuccino flavor is sweet, with a dry, cinnamon and nutmeg aftertaste. There is no real flavor of pumpkin to this beverage. Instead, it is smooth and creamy with a vanilla/cinnamon flavor more than anything distinctly pumpkin flavored. It is not unpleasant, but not at all the flavor it promises. It has not even a hint of coffee flavor to it.

This beverage has a dry aftertaste that dissipates within a minute.

Nutrition

Hills Bros. Cappuccino Pumpkin Pie instant coffee is a coffee mix and therefore is mostly lacking in nutritional value. There are 120 calories in this drink, 35 of which come from fat. With 4 grams of fat (6% of one’s RDA), the Pumpkin Pie Cappuccino is pretty high in saturated fat (3.5 grams!), though it only has 140 mg of Sodium. The 20 grams of carbohydrates prevents this beverage from being appropriate for those doing low-carb diets and the gram of protein is not nutritionally significant. The only vitamins and minerals in this drink are 2% of the RDA of Iron and 4% of the RDA of Calcium. This is a nutritionally underwhelming beverage.

Made primarily of sugar, creamer, and corn syrup, the Pumpkin Pie drink is not Vegan compliant, but is marked as Kosher. It contains milk and soy ingredients.

Storage/Cleanup

So long as one gets Hills Bros. Cappuccino Pumpkin Pie 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 box of Pumpkin Pie I picked up in early December had an expiration date in 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 Pumpkin Pie is a bit of a disappointment for those looking for a pumpkin-flavored or coffee-flavored drink.

For other Instant Coffee drinks, please visit my reviews of:
Taster’s Choice French Roast
Nescafe Caramel Latte Memento
Starbuck’s VIA Columbia Coffee

1.5/10

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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A Sweet Coffee Beverage For Those Who Aren’t In Love With Coffee: Hills Bros. English Toffee Cappuccino Instant Coffee Mix Is (Sort Of) Delightful!

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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