Instant Coffee. Is it an offence now?

[CrazyBoo]

...or I would have thought so this morning in the staff tea room. There I am, making my coffee, when in sashays a female colleague i barely know. "Oh! You're not drinking THAT are you?" she sneers, making hers with the machine that produces coffee that tastes extremely strong for me like monkey shit mixed with diesel oil.

So, my question is, is instant coffee a BAD THING now? Do you drink it? Has anyone commented on your caffiene intake preferences in this pretentious twatty way?

Starbucks weak?!! It was like ice cream sauce. Costa is stronger that I'd like but still in liquid form.

ALass also it has been in the shit of a cat.

People wash towels everyday?

[boggling emoticon]

Carte Noir is unbeatable as far as I'm concerned, and its on offer at the Co-op at the moment so I've stocked up!

I drink instant espresso < shameless >
It's "real" espresso, i.e. not a phantom of my imagination

Instant is a nice "quickie" when I cba to tread my own beans.
btw, I have a loo brush too, but I use it to clean my loo, not my espresso cup.

I normally harvest, winnow, dry, roast and grind my own coffee, but that is too time-consuming at work, female colleague. If you don't go the whole way you might as well drink instant and so I do.

Carte noir is lovely. I also like random fair trade stuff, coop own is nice. I can also drink sains own instant. Not keen on nescafe, both because it's nestle but also because it tastes of sausage. I won't buy it bit ill drink it if it's all that's about.

cardi you have to scrape out coffee grinds and then rinse them down the sink...a mess and a faff... drain blockers - and have you ever seen one explode?
I used to work in catering and if anything cafetieres are the easiest way to make 'real coffee' - you make the pot and then pour out the cups and then leave it on the table... You don't have to faff with an espresso machine which takes ages per cup (actually I had one of those (commercial Gaggia) freak out on me once - electrical short somewhere inside and it started throwing out sparks and I had to reach over it to get to the socket without touching the case) or keep going over to a table to do refills with filter coffee.

Even scraping out the grinds before cafetieres have resulted in blocked sinks - but worse even the proper branded glass ones if you push down too quickly - and/or they have been bumped/weakened (not visible to naked eye) - they can explode spilling scalding water and grinds everywhere...
You can get metal bodied ones that are safer (and less breakages) but on all the ones we tried the plunger wasn't a very snug fit and you got grinds in your coffee...

I have a coffee machine with a paper filters. Once it's done you take it out and chuck it away. That to me seems easiest and cleanes

Unlucky if you preheat the plunger you get a better seal on the grinds. Tho now I know cafetieres explode, coffee just got a lot more exciting.

cardibach at least we agree on Cafe Nero!! Great coffee....shit, over-prices sandwiches

I can't stand instant and would rather not have coffee at all if instant were all that was on offer, but I would never, ever be rude about another person's preferences. That's just nasty.

I like Nescafe Azera myself. But I am working class so that is posh enough. Weekends are for going crazy at the 'real'coffee shops.

I have a cup of instant first thing and then a cup of real coffee later. I have just started to order from Rave Coffee and it is AMAZING stuff!

Bathsheba I totally agree, I am also skint and I drink instant - to be precise BASICS instant. Tastes like coffee. I had a coffee machine and actually got rid of it because it was too much faff for one person (DH only drinks tea) and I didn't find it vastly superior to instant. Equally on the rare occasions I have 'real' coffee out somewhere, I don't find myself thinking "wow, I must drink this more often". It's just a hot drink. I could totally take or leave posh coffee and the price of it makes me cross. I think, god, I could buy three or four jars of my coffee for the price of this cupful.

People are definitely way too snobby about coffee. Get over it.

Equally DH only drinks basics normal tea, actually gets cross when he goes out and has to choose between English Breakfast and the like. But then maybe we are weird because there are almost no brands/fancy versions of things that we consider worth spending more on than the basic cheap versions.

Ghostys - that's a good point. If you read the 'ingredients' on instant coffee, they are .... coffee. That's it.

Ah so it's coffee then. 'real' coffee? Yes, not imagined.

Vicki people's pallettes vary. You might like something or think 2 things taste the same, other people might be different.
And of course a cup of coffee you buy out is more expensive than what you buy in a supermarket. You're not comparing like with like.

Is it just me who thinks that pouring coffee grounds from a cafetiere down the sink is really fucking stupid? It's not like they're going to dissolve.

They don't taste the same but both are "real" coffee. Non-instant coffee is certainly not more healthy than instant (usually more caffeine), it is more expensive and more hassle to make. Whether or not it tastes better is entirely subjective.

Instant coffee is manky compared to proper coffee. It just tastes different. I usually offer visitors instant or nespresso/filter/Italian metal thing that makes beautiful coffee. I don't mind what they choose to drink. i have instant because my sister kicked up that I didnt have any one time she visited so I make sure to always have it now and its amazing how often people seem to prefer it.

However if anyone is kind enough to make me a coffee of any sort, I happily accept it.

That woman has no manners.

I melt for any colleague that drinks instant coffee in my office. I think they are super down-to-earth and non-twatty.

Right. I need to introduce you all to sainsburys coffee bags. They are brilliant. Little paper filter bags filled with just enough ground proper coffee. You unwrap and fold out to prop over the cup and pour over hot water. Top up as it percolates through then fold the whole thing up t dispose. Saving behind a perfectness cup of proper coffee. The grounds get wrapped in the bag so no mess but as the paper is biodegradable it can go into the compost / food bin. Don't bother with the plastic one-cup type - super wasteful with masses of plastic.

They are completely brilliant and I am envagelical about them.

ouryve if that was aimed at me you can't scrape them all out cleanly ...when you rinse the jug the few that are left stuck to the sides, to the plunger etc do go down the drain... But then I am talking about a large number and apart from sheer volume it was in sinks for which that was their primary purpose so not much water being flushed down them at other times...
The traps were full of coffee grinds..actually one place started collecting first rinse in a tub, then pouring it through a sieve down the drain and throwing the grinds collected at the end of the night - guess you could do the first rinse at home straight through a sieve...(faff and mess!)
As aside my kitchen drain blocked -when I cleared out the trap it was full of rotting rice DP had been draining rice using a colander with large holes rather than sieve and washing the escapees down the sink ...and he had been doing that at least once week for over a year...

Coffee grounds are great for keeping slugs away

Dolores, those are a big thing around for years in Asia. I can't believe I had forgotten about them!