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.

• What are the Top 10 Coffee Brands?
• Memories of Mornings with Folgers Coffee
• Is Coffee Beginning to Get Scarce?
• The Top Coffee Brands according to Consumer Reports
• Starbucks Instant Coffee? Via Ready Brew is Just Too Expensive