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?

It IS snobbery the way the OP's colleague meant it though....

The same as the fact that McDonald's coffee frequently scores very highly in blind taste tests, yet many coffee 'purists' would rather die than be seen slurping from a container of Maccy D's...

Only if you have grown the coffee plant from seed yourself Ego

It's all relative. In the great coffee growing Americas (Colombia, Honduras etc). Instant coffee is sold in upmarket cafes as cafe con leche, (half milk/half water) drunk by aspiring middle classes and seen as a sophisticated choice! They also obviously drink bean coffee as well.

Judging others on their drink choices is unnecessary and to be honest there are other things better to hoike my judgy pants up over.

I'm pretty sure that some decent instant coffees could pass a blind tasting against "real" coffee.

This thread is hysterical!

Instant coffee is to 'real' coffee as stock cubes are to 'real' stock.

Not the same thing but perfectly suitable time-saving alternative if you like the taste.

OMG Tatty yes, there's so many of that type where I live ... They talk about extraction times. Sources. Types of milk. Whether to use milk at all. Cup shape and size. If the planets are in the correct alignment, etc.

I'm thinking, I just want a coffee...

I drink both [shrugs]

I have a stove top pot contraption but once I've finished that, or if I'm just being lazy, I'll drink instant. They're different but both tasty.

Although my favourite teabags are the 20p basics ones from Sainsburys. IMO, they taste better than the ones that are far more expensive. So I accept I may be wrong

I agree with a PP that people that don't drink coffee don't make good coffee, but I also think that a non-tea drinker can't make a decent cup of tea. Mixing milk and tea bags - bleurgh.

"I'm pretty sure that some decent instant coffees could pass a blind tasting against "real" coffee."

I don't believe that, actually - instant has a characteristic taste, even if you use the expensive stuff and make it strong enough it's still a completely different drink.

I grew up outside the UK in a place that takes its coffee very seriously, so I wouldn't really class instant as actual coffee, nor can I abide the weedy watery stuff that passes as 'proper' coffee in things like Americano or flat white. Even as a student in the late 80s I was making proper coffee for myself with a little filter cone, much to my friends' amusement. But I don't judge other people for drinking instant, as long as they don't expect me to drink it too.

I do think that many people are over obsessed with hot beverages in general.
when I worked in an office it was constant coffee and tea making. All the 'I can't function until i have had a tea/coffee' people made me

It's always been an offence IMO.

But your colleague didn't need to be a sneery twat about it. I wouldn't dream of sneering at someone for anything they drank or ate.

Love Tatty's description.

I don't like instant coffee and have a DeLonghi (£60 three years ago) espresso machine. I buy packs of pre-ground coffee (Lavazzo or similar). So you might think I am a coffee snob....

However, I have a BIL who is similar to Tatty's relatives. He roasts his own beans, grinds them with some expensive grinder and uses some expensive espresso maker (Gaggia?) to make, admittedly very nice, coffee. On seeing me make coffee, he remarked "If you roast and grind your own beans you'll never go back to supermarket coffee".

I much prefer the taste of real to instant. We have an espresso machine at home which is used several times a day and don't even have instant in the house.

I'm not a dick though and would happily drink instant if offered a coffee at someone's house and I certainly wouldn't comment on someone else's tastes.

However (and this annoys me!) I am branded a coffee snob at work because I don't drink the instant coffee that is supplied and instead have my own pack of real coffee that I make with this contraption. It invokes a comment every bloody day:

www.aeropresscoffee.co.uk/

When we moved house, there was an entire discussion over the moving of the kettle, mugs and brew supplies that resulted in us borrowing a spare kettle and buying more teabags.

It's the first box that goes when you move!-

I grew up with instant coffee and as soon as I had the real thing I preferred it. Nowadays if someone offers me a coffee and I find out it's instant afterwards, I'll drink it up without comment but the next time they offer I'll ask for tea. I wouldn't sneer at anyone, although I did take an old slightly crap coffee machine to store in my pensioner dad's kitchen just so that I could have something I liked in the morning on weekend visits.

Great thread!

First of all your colleague is a twat!

I drink both instant and fancy coffee. Depends on the occasion. At work we have a Nepresso machine (I work with a lot of Italians who are real coffee snobs). Sometimes I have an espresso, sometimes I dilute it with hot water and milk, and sometimes I have instant (which is revolting due to the brand). Usually I have Earl Grey, but that's only good if they have Twinings tea bags; Tetley EG is NOT the same. If I am in the US, the coffee is foul...it tastes like very weak dirty tea. And in Starbucks I was asked if I wanted a wet or dry cappuccino which just confused me!

At home we have an outrageously fancy kitchen aid coffee machine (grinds beans and talks to you in English or German) which DH uses on Saturday morning. Previous owners put it in. We also have an old Nepresso machine that gets quite a lot of use. I usually have instant Alta Rica. My ex snobby SIL derided me for this, but I couldn't care less. And when people come round, I ask what they would like!

To me, instant coffee and fresh are two different drinks. If I'm offered coffee and it's not specified that's fresh I say no just in case it's instant. Even the expensive stuff smells wrong and the taste lingers for hours.
I don't comment on what other people drink but annoyed if they think I'm being a snob. It's two different drinks, one of which I don't like.

I don't drink instant. I don't like it. It's not snobbery, its a matter of taste. I couldn't give a shiny shit what anyone else drinks though, as long as nobody tries to make me drink it.

Just checked the ingredients of my instant coffee (carte noire expresso) ... It's coffee ... So I'm going for it being real coffee ??
I drink instant because it's quick and I like it - coffee snobs just hold up cues in Costa ordering poncy sounding drinks - me I'm an americano and I add milk

The instant coffee snobbery has gone on for years. Remember this advert?

I have never, ever tasted an instant coffee that could pass for fresh. Even the best instant coffees still taste like instant. It has a different taste altogether.

So from what I've read it seems to be it bit on the side of the 'real' coffee drinkers, although no-one would would be as rude as my co-worker and comment on my instant coffee choice. I'm surprised though. Why are there so many instant coffee choices if so few people are buying them, hmm?

Don't forget this is MN Crazy and not always representative of things that actually happen in RL.