Coffee, Instantly

Last year I visited Iceland and picked up some instant coffee for the week.

It looked like the cheapest brand possilbe, but it was better than I expected. Pretty good actually.

I got home and just kept on drinking instant coffee every day. When I ran out of the Iceland stuff, I tried a couple brands from my local grocery stores and settled on Mount Hagen.

My chemex and aeropress are collecting dust.

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I first tried instant coffee once when someone brought it camping circa 2014. It was Nestle, and it was bad enough that I was never going to bother again.

I think instant coffee technology has advanced? Maybe I just tried it with 180F, instead of boiling, water? Maybe the Europeans had it right all along and some American brands are just catching up? I still think the bargain-bin coffee from Iceland is better than the relatively fancy Mount Hagen.

I’m not sure, but the real crime is how much time I spent in college drinking Keurig coffee. Keurigs produce a fucking crazy amount of plastic. When you say this, people point out that you can use re-usable pods. But the coffee is still aggressively mediocre! I guess Keurig coffee is technically fresh-brewed. This must bypass some stigma against instant coffee in America.

I have never had coffee from a Keurig that tastes better than Mount Hagen instant coffee.

I can’t believe I had a Keurig on my counter instead of a much more generally-useful electric kettle.

I can’t believe I spent so much time drinking the most awful, burnt, cardboard-tasting office coffee when I could have just brought my own jar of instant coffee and used the hot water tap.

One more tip. If you’re willing to be a bit of a goblin, instant coffee enables some other hacks. If you’ve got the packet form, you can keep some in your everyday bag. You can even mix it with cold water at a bar if you need a kick before an improv show. Deranged, but arguably less so than spending $5 on a kombucha.