I tried a premium gourmet Thai instant coffee for the first time, and was so surprised by how good it was that I had to feature it. Usually, I like instant coffees because they have nice body that goes well with milk, not so much for their fragrance, which barista coffees are usually better for, but this was different.
The first unusual thing about it is that it boasts the use of Robusta beans, not just Arabica, which many people claim is more premium. Its Instagram page also says its beans are from Brazil and Vietnam.
Secondly, there were very few English pages on it - most of it was in Thai. So it seems mostly catered to the local Thai market.
Thirdly, it boasts barista-level coffee, despite being instant.
Finally, if you see the picture below, it does not appear freeze-dried, as the powder is much finer. It looks like spray-dried grain size. And yet, people claim that freeze-dried coffee apparently preserves the flavour better.
Nonetheless, after trying it, I checked the ingredients list and saw a little disappointing surprise (explained below, see the last image).
So after all these unusual/uncommon aspects, how did it measure up?
I thought it was every bit as good as it claimed. (I have all my coffees with cold milk, so I am comparing that version with other lattes and cold milk coffees I have had.)
Firstly, it produced a very rich and nice crema, which usually isn't so thick and golden for instant coffee, even freeze-dried ones. See the images below. Although, it disappeared quite quickly after.
Next, its flavour profile seems true to form. Before reading the package's description, the thoughts that crossed my mind about the flavour were "caramel", "creamy" and somewhat slightly "winey". And when I cross-checked the package's description, it seems to match that exactly. Not only the caramel flavour, but also the creaminess was probably somewhere between the "vanilla" and "cereal" taste. It reminded me of the grainy creaminess of this AGF Everblack single-origin instant coffee from Ywangan, Myanmar,
Thirdly, it had complexity to its flavour. The mildly "winey" thought that crossed my mind probably refers to a mix of "fruity" and "cereal". This was the super interesting thing about the taste - this mildly winey aspect tends to be very complex, and I could taste that complexity very clearly, even if faint, whereas usually you hardly get much complexity from instant coffee. This was what really surprised me.
Unlike the usual AGF and UCC sticks of freeze-dried instant coffee, however, this one was less intense and less thick. It was more subtle. Usually, I use about 180ml of milk (so the same coffee glass below is 4/5 full) for those coffees to get a latte shade, but for this, I used around 125-150ml (which filled around 2/5 to 1/2 of the same coffee glass - you can see that the glass is less than half full below).
The crema kind of vanished too, but that is normal even for barista latte.
So what was the disappointing surprise? It turns out that they added some kind of artificial flavour (see the list below - click to enlarge). I'm not sure which aspect it was, whether it was the creamy aspect, the caramel aspect or the winey aspect.
Furthermore, it's like 2.28% of the ingredients... that seems like quite a lot? Considering that even a drink with 5% sugar is already considered quite sweet. Nonetheless, it doesn't seem like they added anything artificial that caused the crema effect.
This might be the main reason why I wouldn't be so quick to recommend this to other people. But if you don't mind additives and just want a lovely instant coffee, then I would say this is about the best light one out there that I've tried.
Discover other interesting coffee and lattes:
- Kopi Luwak aka Civet Cat Droppings Coffee
- (also instant) Single Origin Coffee from Ywangan, Shan State, Myanmar by AGF Everblack Instant Coffee
- Little Butter Latte by Luckin Coffee
- Ondeh Ondeh Lattes
- Planet Latte at Greybox Coffee
- Unicorn Latte Art at Keong Saik Bakery
- Dirty Coffee from Asia - Greybox Coffee from China
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