I spotted a news article and read various sources to discover that Starbucks will be rolling out with a new instant coffee called "Via Ready Brew" in the US and Canada during September. The price? While there is no firm price set, they plan to charge USD $2.95 for a "book" of three or $9.95 for a box of 12. Come again? There is no way on Earth I would spend that much for instant coffee, regardless of what brand it is.

A Mistaken Assumption?

Apparently, Via Ready Brew had a successful introduction in Seattle (the home of Starbucks) and some places in the state of Illinois. Each packet is equivalent to one cup of Starbucks coffee, making each cup of "instant coffee" more expensive than people pay for the current top brands.

I personally think they're assuming too much. After the novelty wears off, I'm guessing they'll have excess product on the shelves and will start putting it on sale just to clear their inventories. Even if they sell it in the regular Starbucks coffee shops, I predict sales will be lukewarm at best.

Why do I think this way? Most people who can afford to drink coffee at Starbucks are looking for hot coffee prepared in a unique way. They're not looking for instant coffee which won't be any better than the best instant coffee already on the market. Now, I don't know what the "best" instant coffee brands on the market are, but I'm willing to guess they're the most expensive brands found at grocery stores. I speak of brands like Folgers and Nescafé.

Folgers Coffee Crystals

I don't pay attention too much to names on the labels, but I can't help remembering the commercial advertisements on TV. Things like "it's mountain grown, the freshest kind" and "we've secretly replaced their gourmet coffee with Folgers coffee crystals" readily come to mind.

I don't know what the current price is, but I guarantee you it's a jar for less than $9.95 and a lot more than 12 cups.

Nescafé Taster's Choice

My parents always drank Taster's Choice instant coffee, long before I knew it was a label from Nescafé. They marketed it as freeze-dried coffee to seal in the flavor. Ho-hum, it doesn't taste any better than Folgers, but it's around the same price.

When I buy instant coffee, I buy Nescafé Classic, which is a coffee powder. It's around 30 cups for about $4.25 a jar. One of my relatives gave me a jar of Nescafé Red Cup, which is coffee granules instead of powder, but I really couldn't tell the difference in taste.

A Huge Instant Coffee Market

Who can blame Starbucks for trying to get a chunk of the $17 billion in annual revenue generated by instant coffee sales? I don't, but I think they're going about it the wrong way. Going up against the longtime favorites, two of which I mentioned, is going to be a difficult task at the prices they're planning to charge.

I'm no expert, but I believe most instant coffee buyers are grocery shoppers, not coffee shop regulars. Only time will tell, but I believe we'll see the results of their efforts within six months. Prices will either come down or sales will stop. That's my prediction and I'm sticking to it.

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I recently made a big mistake when buying cheap coffee at the Royal Subic store at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone. I normally buy Nescafé Classic, but the regular jars of it were out-of-stock. The store is in a remodeling phase and food products are being moved around. It's difficult to find what you're looking for, even if you know where it's supposed to be.

The Best Instant Coffee Brands

I don't know why certain brands of instant coffee are made differently from each other. Whether it's coffee powder, freeze-dried coffee, or coffee with coffee crystals makes no difference to me. The best brands I've ever personally consumed are those made by Folgers and Nescafé, regardless of the particular variety.

My parents have been drinking "Taster's Choice" for years (and I obviously leech off of them whenever possible) but it was only recently that I discovered that it was a brand owned by Nescafé and only when they put that word on the label. It didn't used to be there (kind of like when they changed the "Quik" chocolate drink to "NesQuik"). I've been drinking Nescafé and Folgers (instant coffee only) for quite some time myself.

In the Philippines, Nescafé is also the cheapest, good brand of coffee and it's made in the Philippines even though Nescafé is a Swiss product. When I shop for coffee, I normally shop for Nescafé. If it's not available and I can find Folgers coffee on the shelf, I'll opt to buy the Folgers coffee even though it's usually twice as expensive.

The Worst Instant Coffee Brands

When it comes to coffee, you can't substitute a good brand with a generic-sounding brand. You just can't. It will taste like crap compared to what you're used to. Even certain brand name coffees taste like crap compared to what I'm used to.

Maxwell House instant coffee, for example, just doesn't taste good to me. I don't know if it's due to their manufacturing process or if they just use inferior coffee beans. Whatever the case, I don't like it.

On my last shopping trip, I couldn't find the Nescafé varieties or the Folgers coffee anywhere. I ended up buying an offbeat brand called "Sunny Select". It was a big mistake. That coffee tastes like I boiled my socks and tried to make coffee out of the results, it's that bad. Sunny Select makes a lot of food products and lot of it's good, but they have failed when it comes to coffee. I didn't buy this brand because it was cheap coffee. I bought it because it was all that I could find that wasn't Maxwell House.

Automatic Drip Coffee is a Different Story

I don't own an automatic drip coffee maker, but I plan to get one in the next few months as my budget allows. In my past experiences with automatic drip coffee brands, several brands always topped my list. In the case of drip coffee, Maxwell House is actually very good even though their instant coffee sucks.

Folgers is another good drip coffee. You really can't go wrong with Folgers. There are some other brands that I won't touch with a ten-foot pole and the reason is because they aren't 100 percent coffee. Some brands include things like chicory and I want my coffee pure. I like the taste of coffee, not that other nonsense they use to dilute the flavor. When they do something like that, it tells me their coffee beans are inferior to start with.

I've learned a lesson — never settle for second best. If I have to settle for second best from now on, I believe I'd rather do without having any coffee at all.

Similar Posts:

• What are the Top 10 Coffee Brands?
• Memories of Mornings with Folgers Coffee
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• Starbucks Instant Coffee? Via Ready Brew is Just Too Expensive