To serve guests instant coffee

[Drinkingpimmsinmygarden]

DH and I aren't really coffee drinkers (prefer tea)so we just have a jar of instant coffee such as Nescafé. No real ground coffee.

Are we being unreasonable not to have 'proper' coffee in for guests?

Whether you can tell the difference surely depends on what you regularly drink? I drink coffee (from our very lovely Rancilo Silvia), green tea and herbal tea. I can easily tell a difference in quality with those, particularly coffee. I drink black tea maybe once a year, so it all tastes the same to me.

I only have 'proper' coffee because I don't drink instant. If I offer people a drink I will say that it is cafetiere stuff. Some people only drink instant so ask for tea instead. I don't think they're being rude - I'd much rather they have something they'd actually like to drink.

How us a cafetiere time? You boil kettle pour on.

Instant coffee with milk the very worst. Any tradesman who comes here also gets real coffee and they often comment on how nice it is

I'd rather have tea than instant coffee which I hate. A friend of mine only drinks tea and has an ancient jar of nescafe, he did tell me this the first time I went round so I could opt for tea.
If someone just offers "tea or coffee" I feel fussy (I am though) asking "what sort of coffee?" and would prefer to be offered "tea or instant coffee". I drink all sorts of tea. maybe tea drinkers who don't like tea bags feel I should offer a range of tea, which i have but don't usually offer if someone is just staying briefly.

I'm a caffeine addict ...
I drink instant (buy 500g tins of tesco's gold - baby murderer's rip off)....
I have a cafetiere, an espresso/cappuchino machine, had a filter coffee maker(got rid about a month ago), an espresso stove pot, a filter thing you put on top of a cup from Thailand(?)
I drink instant cos it is caffeine, quick, and mess free. All the machines need some degree of cleaning - the filter over the cup thing takes so long your coffee is cold...
I ask guests if they mind instant - no one ever has - if they did I could give them a choice of methods....so not sure what kind of hostess that makes me...
It is a snob thing - I think it is a bit like my work colleagues who are thrilled there is a Costa machine in our local shop - as a treat they buy a cup and transport it the 10 min drive to work - it will be cold and personally - for real coffee - I don't think it is that special...

Just to put you all off real coffee visiting non-coffee drinkers...
When I first met a friend she would make me real coffee - always took her ages to make ...then (when she knew me a bit better) she asked me if instant would be ok ... of course... Turns out she had a machine but only really used it for me and she always forgot to clean it out - so when I went she'd have to clean out the mould before she could use it....

If you make real coffee in a cafetiere it's no more of a faff than making instant coffee.

As for cleaning a cafetiere if I can do it anyone can. Just scrape out the grounds and bung in dish washer.

I buy real coffee for guests, why not? Everyone ( almost everyone) who likes coffee prefers real coffee, so why would you serve donkey piss other than out of meanness/cannotbearsedness?

Because if you don't drink coffee, this probably wouldn't occur to you. It had never occurred to me until this thread the instant I keep for guests isn't good enough.

To be honest I've had the jar about two years, and in that time it's been used maybe twice. None of my close family/friends drink coffee, they all drink either tea, or cold drinks. So it would never occur to me to go out and buy cafetiere and the grounds just in case in the next couple of years someone wants a coffee. If I had a friend/family member over regularly who I knew liked non-instant coffee, that would be different.

On the other hand I'm allergic to a lot of drinks, and only really drink diet Dr Pepper. I wouldn't expect people to stock that, I'd either drink water or take my own with me!

I would only ever make instant and until now it has never occurred to me that anyone would need to be informed in advance that it's instant.

Moreover, we have a cafetiere and stove top thing and packets of ground coffee in the house but only dh ever uses them because just the smell of the cofffee and all the leftover messy bits makes me heave. DH has to clean up his own coffee pots because I can't stomach it.

If you want anything other than instant in my house you have to wait until dh is in or make and clean up after your own.

I only make filtered coffee, but will easily drink a cup of instant if offered. What I find increasingly annoying is being expected to offer, in my house: decaffeinated coffee, camomile tea, green tea, peppermint tea, and even decaffeinated tea; fruit teas are for some reason, infra dig. Whatever happened to manners?

Do people freshly squeeze oranges for a glass of juice and serve tea leaves rather than a bag?

This thread is hilarious. I wouldn't think twice about just serving instant coffee.

I have had several people ask me for green tea before. I find it annoying. I now stock it, but kind of resent it.

I've been asked for Earl Grey but my friend is quite happy to drink normal tea because I don't have it.

I would generally not have coffee unless made in an espresso kettle by my Italian friend. She has spoilt other coffee for me. Spoilt I tell ya!

Everyone I know has instant for normal days but real if it's a special occasion and they can be bothered. I would never expect it to be anything other than instant when offered coffee.

I drink both happily, though I have to say that the most disgusting coffee is the filter stuff we get at work. Really horrible. Carte noire instant is nice

Keep several kind of instant and ground coffee in the house - quite a lot of people prefer instant anyway. We also have cafetieres and a stovetop thingy that gets used at weekends

I don't see cafetiere coffee as a faff at all. But then I make tea in a teapot, which is much the same. Do people who think it's a faff tend to make tea in the mug?

scotchttikidoll, you sound such a charming host LOL

"Get what yer given or STFU"

sounds great fun, a bit like a comedy sketch , I imagine some hapless fucker saying "Oh, I'll have a coffee please", for you to reply: "STFU, yer getting donkey piss!"

"How us a cafetiere time? You boil kettle pour on."

Then wait for the optimum four minutes before pouring. Then there is the faff of cleaning it afterwards. I don't put my cafetiere in the dishwasher.

I am not snobby about instant coffee, but tend to drink the real stuff more often than instant. I am more of a tea drinker anyway.

Phaedra the snobbish element is in assuming that if someone only has instant coffee in the house, they will only have PG Tips tea bags too. There is a whiff of "these fake-drink-swilling plebs and their unevolved taste buds" rather than thinking that perhaps one of the reasons they only have instant coffee is because they aren't that fussed about coffee since tea is their drink and they prefer to spend their money on a good selection of teas.

OK, as tea drinker with a preference for PG Tips, I sometimes find that tea in other people's houses has no taste because they use another brand. Am I a snob?

No, your not being unreasonable. I always have 'proper' coffee at home but when a guest in someone's home I would only ever eat or drink up and be thankful for what they were sharing with me.

Nobody is a snob for having a preference. You become a snob when you imply that your preference is better than someone else's preference and/or that what they eat/drink/own/do is inferior to your preference. You become a rude snob when you allow your preference to overrule your manners and risk making your host/ess feel bad or inadequate by refusing to choke down a cup of something which you personally wouldn't choose and don't particularly like but which won't kill you, when it is given to you in good faith and hospitality.

As for freshly squeezed orange juice as mentioned further up the page. Yes, its always freshly squeezed here because it goes with the geography and customs, and I always have a jug of freshly made pink lemonade as well.

Its just the way it is.

And the tea is always made in a teapot.

Well said signyourname.

The last couple of times I've offered someone coffee in my house, I've gone to fire up the espresso machine only to be told not to bother faffing around with that and that instant is fine. And one of those people is someone who I regularly spend 30 minutes queuing with at Monmouth Coffee in Borough Market on Saturday mornings instead of popping to the Starbucks round the corner.

I guess that I'm just such incredible company that people would rather drink instant and talk longer than get proper coffee and have to wait while I make it.