Lyons All-Day Coffee

Dreadful stuff. Has to be drunk with milk. Tastes cheap, nasty, and bitter. The Lyons brand, which started as J. Lyons in 1884, and famously had tea rooms and Corner Houses around the UK, was split up in the 1980s; the coffee brand is now owned by UCC, who also own the dreadful Three Sixty brand.

Cafe Classic Cappucino

Cheap as chips from my local 99p store, but very watery and tastes of  stale chip fat, sawdust, and budget instant coffee.  Not good.


Score: 1

Creamy instant coffees

Frothy coffee

There are a number of these instant latte/cappuccino/mocha drinks. They all tend to come in individually wrapped servings inside a box, and are instant coffee powder with sugar, dried milk or vegetable fat and other ingredients. There's very little coffee flavour, but they are fun.

Nescafe Cafe Menu Latte Caramel 
Score: 5    Price: £2 (approx)

Mokate Gold Premium Cappuccino Chocolate
Score:  5  Price:  £0.99

Nescafe Cafe Menu Gingerbread Latte 
Score: 4    Price: £2 (approx)

Nescafe Cafe Menu Mint Mocha 
Score 4    Price: £2 (approx)

Nescafe Gold Salted Caramel Mocha
Score: 4 Price: £2.00

Tesco Cafe Style Mocha 
Score: 4   Price: £1.29

Aldi Alcafe Mocha 
Score:  3   Price:  £1.25

Mokate To Go! Cafe Mocha 
Score: 3    Price: 99p

Nescafe Cafe Menu Coconut Latte 
Score: 2   Price: £2.77

Maxwell House Mocha 
Score: 2  Price: £1

Mokate To Go! Cafe Cappuccino 
Score: 2    Price: 99p

Aldi Alcafe Cappuccino
Score: 2  Price: 99p for 10x16g

CafeClassic Latte 
Score: 2   Price: 99p

Sainsbury's Cappuccino Unsweetened 
Score: 2   Price: £1.90

Nescafe Cafe Menu Cappuccino  
Score: 2  Price £2 (approx)

Nescafe Cafe Menu Double Choca Mocha
Score: 2 Price: £2 (approx)

Lidl Bellarom Instant Latte  
Score:  2

Aldi Alcafe Latte
Score: 2

Maxwell House Cappuccino 
Score: 1   Price £1

Cafe Classic Cappucino 
Score:  1   Price:  99p

Nescafe Cafe Menu / Gold Gingerbread Latte

It's winter so the Gingerbread Latte makes a welcome return! This time under the Gold range. I've not kept a note of the ingredients, so I don't know if the recipe has changed, but I do know that I really like this creamy instant. It's sweet, it's fun, and it has a warming hint of gingerbread. As these days I only drink instant coffee (the caffeine in real coffee was having a negative impact on my health so I've given it up), and as I dislike instant coffee, these creamy instants are all I drink* as they make absolutely no attempt at pretending to be real coffee. This is one of the most fun of the creamy instants. If you like instant coffee and/or milky espressos like cappuccino and latte, then try this. It's great fun.

* I do, of course, drink tea and  beer and wine and.....

Date: Jan 2019   Score: 6 

It's the Christmas season, so the Gingerbread Latte is back. Yum yum. Not really a coffee, more of a sweet milky drink, but it's pleasant enough and great fun.

Date: Dec 2017   Score: 4

An instant coffee by Nescafe. There are a number of these instant latte/cappuccino/mocha drinks. They all tend to come in individually wrapped servings inside a box, and are instant coffee powder with sugar,  dried milk or vegetable fat and other ingredients. There's very little coffee flavour, but they are fun. This is a limited edition Christmas special with some supposed gingerbread flavourings.

Due to the sugar and the milk powder, this makes an attractive, easy drinking warm beverage. It's the best of the creamy instants I've tried so far, and at over £3, the most expensive.


Date: January 2015   Score: 3/10 

+++

Ingredients

Cafe Menu: Sugar, Skimmed Milk Powder (22%), Glucose Syrup, Coconut Oil, Instant Coffee (9%), Lactose, Acidity Regulator (E340), Natural Flavouring, Stabilisers (E331, E452), Salt [Sodium Chloride, Anti-caking Agent (E535)] 

Gold: Sugar, Skimmed Milk Powder (22%), Glucose Syrup, Coconut Oil, Coffee (7.5%) [Instant Coffee (7.0%), (Roast and Ground Coffee)], Lactose, Natural Gingerbread Flavouring, Acidity Regulator (E340), Stabilisers (E331, E452), Salt.

***

Frothy coffee

Sainsbury's Double Dark

Like drinking burnt toast. It has an interest of its own, but the interest is fairly limited. This is a basic, simple coffee with limited appeal. I understand that there are now darker roasts than this - double double dark for example, but I wonder why.

I like my coffee black, and that's how I started drinking this, but it is better with milk.


2/10

Sainsbury's own label tea and coffee

Coffee roasts

Cafe Classic Latte

Picked up in a 99p shop, imported by some nameless business in Stanmore. It's fairly insipid. Not good value for money. Latte is an espresso coffee with milk - apparently the difference between a latte and a cappuchino is that a latte has more milk.


2/10

Creamy instant coffees

Costa Rican coffee

Costa Rican coffee has a good reputation for solid tasty coffee beans - though is not too distinct from Colombian or better grades of Brazilian.

My experience has not been positive. The coffee tends to be difficult to make to my liking - being either too bitter / sludgy / harsh, or lacking in body / weight / character. With the exact amount of coffee and the exact brewing time, the taste can be quite acceptable, but not really worth the fiddling to find the right amount. While I currently have Tesco in first place and Sainsbury's in last place, the coffees are not that distinct, and the end result would be as much to do with my brewing as with the contents in the packet, and quite possibly could be reversed if tried again.

Tesco Finest Costa Rican Coffee

Score: 6

CafeDirect Costa Rica

Score: 5

Tea-and-coffee-emporium Tarrazu

Score: 4

Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Costa Rica Tarraz 

Score:  3

Maxwell House Mocha

This is a Maxwell House brand, which is a guarantee of indifferent quality instant coffee, mild, bland, and popular. The brand started in 1892 in Nashville, and became America's best selling coffee brand, introducing instant coffee in the 1940s. There's a list of chemical ingredients on the packet, and somewhere in there is instant coffee, but only 9%. No chocolate, but there is some chocolate flavour. It's a creamy, sweet, coffee and chocolate flavoured warm drink. There's no pretence to quality - this is simply a quick and fun warm drink. 


2/10

Creamy instant coffees

Twinings The Everyday Tea

A blend of tea from Yunnan in China, Assam, African and Indonesia. Designed to be rich and full bodied, and drunk with milk. This is a robust and pleasant tea. It lacks character, but it's brown and quenches the thirst. Not remarkable, but quite drinkable.


Score: 4

***

Twinings