The only thing instant coffee is good for is cooking with.

I am not a coffee drinker but I love the aroma of coffee brewing. I have spent many an afternoon in Starbucks reading the newspaper and people-watching for this very reason.
On an unrelated note "How Starbucks Saved My Life" is a great book.

No matter what they do, it will still be instant coffee, only burnt.

How can Starbucks, or anyone, improve on the taste of Sanka?

RoCK - isn't Sanka the instant coffee that "fooled" the Chasen's customers, just like the Pizza Hut pasta meals that fooled the customers of a (used to be) reputable Italian restaurant?

Instant coffee has always been bad coffee in my limited experience with it - especially because in the time it takes to make it, you can always use a French press and have a delightful cup of fresh brew!

In the story the Starbucks CEO saysthe new product will help boost traffic in the afternoon and evening when customers are more mobile and possibly looking for one cup of coffee rather than a full pot.

What the hell does that mean? That in the evening if I have a hankerin' for just one cup of coffee, I'll run down to Starbucks and order a cup of instant? This makes no sense.

One cup? You can use a melitta, a small french press, an aeropress, a small ibrik or even a pod monstrosity, and get one cup of tasty, good, drinkable coffee. It'll take about 2-3 minutes longer.

I'll wait.

I don't really drink coffee, but I know that instant coffee is great for the people in Iraq.

"The only thing instant coffee is good for is cooking with."

Gotta agree, Lissa. I don't drink coffee but I keep a jar of espresso powder for making brownies and the like.

Bucky- You keep the packets of instant coffee at home, then you have it when you need it, then you get mobile. I'm so comfortable with my coffee-maker though, I don't see how boiling the water for the instant coffee is any easier, and as Joyce pointed out would be better used in a French press. The spokesman talks about overcoming the "connotation" of instant coffee as though the main marketing obstacle is image and not the actual substance.

As for the connotation of instant coffee around the world, I can only say that when I was in India I had a difficult time finding fresh brewed coffee.. This was back in 1987 before Starbucks infiltrated the subcontinent. Even in the ritziest hotels one could not get real coffee, only a frothy cup of Nescafe which was served with pride. This in a country where they grow splendid coffee and have a fine tradition of preparing the daily "decoction" in private homes.

My understanding is that good coffee is widely available there now. I think the allure of instant coffee had something to do with the developing world's fascination with all things modern, western, scientific, and "progressive". You see that also in the preference (in some places) for infant formula over breast milk (you knew we could work that in somewhere, didn't you Bucky).

Anyway, I hope the rest of the world is catching on to the fact that just because it's done in America doesn't mean it's better.

I think they're going about it all wrong. What happened to the slow food movement? On the west coast you can get individually brewed coffee or single-cup filter-drip coffee. I'd rather wait and pay and get a fresh cup of coffee which is why I patronize local coffee shops as often as possible.

Recent circumstances have forced me to drink instant coffee (Folgers and Nescafe) on a regular basis. Once one gets used to it, and I feel I nearly am, it's not really all that bad. Imagine you were stuck on an uncharted island for 20 years and could only make coffee by boiling lagoon water and wild boar poop, and then straining the liquid through a bandana. Like that. Maybe I should try adding coconut milk?

Heck, if I want one cup of coffee, I just use my 10-cup Mr. Coffee and just put in enough for one cup.

That is what I do most weekday mornings anyway, and have more when I get in to work.

LL,
I would guess that maybe tea ruled the roost in India for such a long time, it took good coffee a long time to make itself popular.

Starbucks brewed coffee is undrinkable, why should their instant be better?

When I was in school in India 20+ years ago, tea was big in the north of India but coffee was what was drunk in the south. I lived in the Deccan, which is between the north and the south, so we had both.

I was never served instant. The coffee always came with cream and sugar, and was spiced with cardamon, cinnamon and a touch of clove. It was lovely.

Laura Lee, were you in the north? That might be the difference. Also, I only had coffee in people's houses or in cheap thali places or the college canteen.

I'm trying to figure out who this is aimed at. People who already drink Starbucks are probably going to be against instant coffee (if only because they already are willing to spend the time/money to get the real thing). People who drink instant coffee may not be willing to pay the extra $ for Starbucks instant coffee.

But I guess they must have tested this stuff with focus groups, right?

PCB Rob, Lissa is absolutely right about tea being drunk in the north and coffee in the south of India. I never got further south than Goa and don't remember having any coffee there.

I just read a little bit about the history of coffee in India. About 400 years ago Saint Baba Budan, while on a pilgrimage to Mecca discovered coffee there and brought back seven
coffee beans from Yemen. He planted them in the Chandragiri Hills of Karnataka.

Glad you got to enjoy the good coffee while you were there Lissa!

It's true isn't it; every country seems to have a north where things are done one way and a south where it's a completely different story.

Goa is beautiful, no, Laura Lee?

I lived about 60 miles east, in the northwest corner of Karnataka.

I learned to drink coffee in India (Dad thought it was sinful). Starbucks, years later, taught me about *good* coffee.

Shame they've gone downhill so much.

Lissa - cardamon is probably delightful in coffee. I never thought of putting it in there before. About how much do you think they used?

For those of you who want to do your own taste test, a free sample of Starbucks Via is available at the Starbucks Store website.

By the way, I see that the AP (source of the Sun's story) had to note that Via is a "water-soluble product". Well, duh.

Nescafe which was served with pride

Thanks for the end-of-a-long-day laugh, LL!

FL Rob - $10 at the KMart will get you a 1-cup coffe maker.

This doesn't surprise me at all. Just compare a latte from Starbucks to one from a good independent coffee house. No contest, like night and day. Maybe I'm spoiled living in Seattle, but what really surprises me is that Starbucks can stay in business at all, selling mediocre coffee and lame "production-line" lattes at such high prices. The only good coffee they sell is brewed on their Clover machines but the price per cup is outside my budget.

Joyce, if I'm making the usual sized carafe of Indian-style spiced coffee, I used a pod of white cardamom (take the seeds out, crush them in a mortar), a few shakes of ground cinnamon and the smallest pinch of ground clove. Put the spices in with the ground coffee, brew.

I usually drink my coffee black, but if you are using cardamom, you really want some milk or cream in there.

Thanks Eve,
But on weekends and when people are over I need to brew more than just a cup at a time, and don't feel like having two coffee makers.

When I lived in Turkey in the early 80s, the best gifts I could bring while traveling were Nescafé instant coffee and Marlboro cigarettes. Turkish coffee was hard to find during those days and all the good Turkish tobacco was exported (Tobacco aside: when Camel cigarettes were introduced into Greece around that time, the package was changed form "domestic and Turkish tobacco" to "domestic and imported tobacco"). Even the guys with the dancing bears wanted Marlboros, not money.

The use of cardamom, clove and cinnamon makes this sound like a chai coffee. Coffee People sells a chai coffee for the Keurig K-Cup system [no booing, please] but I don't know if chai coffee is available elsewhere.

Joyce W., your last comment recalled for me a novel entitled "Arab" by Hans Ruesch. It's no great work of literature but I like the following passage wherein the protagonists are encamped for the night during a hazardous desert crossing:

The perils we knew lurking ahead only increased the sweetness of the twilight halt, when we would perform the day's last devotions and break our fast. My company preferred drinking the allotted water in the form of coffee, with which Lahoom had provided us; it did more to slake our thirst, though the quantity shrank in the course of brewing. Sandal, squatting on his heels in the center of our circle, would roast the beans on the long, flat iron spoon which he held out with both hands over the camel-dung fire. Soon the air was filled with such heady smell for wayfarers with empty stomachs and sere throats that for all our efforts to show indifference our nostrils quivered-- faint outward sign of what occurred within our bodies.

Sandal pleased me as coffee-master (as in any other capacity) because he discharged his task with thoroughness, protracting our joy of anticipation until the idea of hewing off his head must needs enter our minds. While we watched giddily, he pounded the lightly tanned beans so meticulously with the pestle that always a few drops of perspiration from his worried brow were added. Then he stirred the ground coffee into the boiling pot and placed it to simmer near the embers. In the silence one could hear wooden tongues swallowing expectantly against parched palates. Our mouths would have watered had they been in condition to do so.

Only he who knows the waterless marches understands why the desert was the cradle of coffee; not the weak brew of the poor, made of husks; nor that of the rich, spiced with pepper, cloves, ginger, mastic, honey, cinnamon, and perfumed with orange flowers, rose water, jasmin or ambergris; much less the syrup introduced by the decadent Turk, who chars the fragrance out of the beans and spoils with sugar what taste is left, wanting it "black as night and sweet as blood." I mean the father of all coffees, our greenish-yellow Arabian brew, "like gall in hue and in bitterness," a thimbleful of which kills the thirst, cleanses the mouth and lifts the spirit as if by magic: the only pleasure of the senses to which the strictest moralists do not object, because, by preventing sleep, it fosters holy meditation.

Before removing the simmering pot, Sandal added the prescribed pinch of saffron for color and the nine seeds of cardamom for increased bitterness, taken from the satchel he carried on his person as jealously as I carried my pistol and rosary; then he pressed the filter-bunch of aromatic twigs into the spout and dashed a first mouthful into each of our cups.

We nursed them in our hands in order to protract the agony a little longer; until the fragrance exasperated our stomachs to a cramp of expectancy. Only then would we drain the cup, rinse the mouth with the scouring bitterness, and swallow it in one scalding gulp that widened the arid gullet. So one could feel the warm anodyne soothe the stomach, and perceive the shriveled entrails revive, the chest expand, the bloodstream quicken, together with the flow of thought, which had lain dormant; and flesh and mind experienced a bliss the like of which is expected only of the Promised Gardens. Well could one then understand why Suleiman the Magnificent had two Persian doctors hanged for asserting that coffee was injurious to the health!

"Chai" is just Hindi for "tea." Indian tea is usually spiced, but exactly how varies from family to family.

What tends to get sold as "chai" in this country would be called "masala chai" in India (Hindi speaking areas, at least). "Masala" just means "spiced."

So, while you can have masala coffee, you can't have chai coffee. Unless we are talking about that time at Long John Silver's when Mom and I ordered tea, and they gave us coffee with a Constant Comment tea bag in it. And that isn't a flavour I ever willingly will experience again.

One of the really great ideas I've had and never followed through on (and there are many) was to have an exercise class followed by afternoon tea. I was going to call it "Tai Chi and Chai Tea."

I bet it would have gotten good enrollment.

Street tea in India is called Masala Tea - its what we most likely call Chai these days. They brew pots of it everywhere. Like behinds the counters in shops with propane heaters.
You can get Cardamon Cinnamon tea from The Republic of Tea here and add milk.
Or make your own.
The former was easier at FL430.

Laura Lee - I thoroughly enjoyed the passage you shared with us. I was great coffee veneration. Not coffee porn exactly, more like coffee exaltation. It is interesting to think that in our country, only recently, have most of us just begun to think about coffee in such lyrical terms. Before, it was the hot liquid that you crammed down your throat in the morning to wake up!

Lissa thanks for the flavoring instructions. I tend to get carried away with spices so it's good to know about how much to use!

Should be "IT was great coffee veneration" not "I"! I should really wake up more before I try posting!

Laura lee--great contribution to the online foodie book club! Is the rest of the book worth reading?

Joyce, cardamom in the pod lasts years. So, if you have a small jar, say from Penzey's, it'll last you through many pots of coffee.

Joyce W.- I'm glad you liked it. That was first published in 1957. Sorry it was so long but I didn't want to edit out anything.

Dahlink- No, oddly enough, I don't think the book is worth reading, it was that one particular passage that grabbed me.

I am a barista at SBUX. Some people underestimate our desire for the best after all we were trained by the best! We want the best, expect the best, strive for the best.

Uncle Howie said something along the lines of “if it didn’t meet our standards, we wouldn’t put our name on it.” Very true. I tried the VIA a few days ago in a store meeting and I love it! I love the idea of it: I can carry a ‘cup of coffee’ in my purse, ready for me at any time! And the taste was great! a lot of people have been throwing it into the pile of all instant coffees. But don’t knock it ’til you try it.

Furthermore, the Instant Coffee is patented. No one else can replicate it and it’s different from everyone else’s. That should say something!

Give it a try! For the fun of it, I would recommend getting two cups of coffee at SBUX. Don’t let yourself know which one is Instant and which one is Brewed (mark the bottom of the cup so you can look afterwards) and I’ll bet you’ll be surprised and delighted!

I should also add that Starbucks isn't replacing fresh brewed coffee with VIA but now you have the choice.

Furthermore, Instant Coffee is HUGE in Europe and Starbucks expects to sell quite a bit more there than in the US which is why 66% of its launch is in Europe, not here.

SBUX - - - Bringer of pain & delight.

Stephanie, you have a super attitude! You sold me!

Stephanie, you are remarkably articulate and well-informed of corporate info and strategies for a barista. Good for you. You should look into a job in marketing at SBUX.

Stephanie: nothing personal, but if Starbucks "strives for the best", than why does the coffee suck so much?
I love a good strong cup of coffee. What I don't like is coffee that is overroasted and burned. That is what Starbucks is.
The unwashed masses, who follow lemming-like towards any new trend, made Starbucks popular. That doesn't mean that it is good.

I heard that they pump up the level of caffeine in the instant stuff.

What does VIA stand for? Violent Intestinal Agitation?

SBUX - - - Bringer of pain & delight.

btw, love your pithy remarks RayRay.

I don't know if they have them around here, but that reminds me of the corporate franchise coffee place at Harvard B School – Au Bon Pain, which we all called Ow, Bone Pain.

Swerve....

I've had a couple of backpacks in the past decade made by Lowe's Alpine. On both I cut away (I hate any sort of logos) parts of the stitched-on name so that it says " ow a pin". The only person who has ever noticed was a sales dude at Sunny's Surplus. Abre los ojos.

TerrierMom, they don't exactly put more caffeine in instant coffee, it is that instant is usually made from robusta, not arabica, because after processing it, you can't taste the difference.

Robusta beans have twice the caffeine. They are also low grown, easier to grow than arabica trees and taste like brewed socks.

The only time it is at all appropriate to have robusta beans in any coffee product is a small percentage of (rare) well-grown robusta in espresso blends. This will make it easier to produce crema. It isn't necessary, though, and there shouldn't be much robusta in there. And certainly no Vietnamese robusta.

"I love the idea of it: I can carry a 'cup of coffee' in my purse, ready for me at anytime!"

Speaking of Brave New World ...

And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears-- that's what soma is.

I worked in the building for 7 years where Ow, Bone Pain (like that name better) is on South Street, and I think I may have had their coffee once.

Their sandwiches were good, if a little overpriced.

I'm so glad I'm a beta...

My free sample of Starbucks Via arrived in the mail -- actually, two sample packets, one each of Italian Roast and Colombia. Since I usually drink my coffee black at home, I tried both as is. They weren't bad, but both were rather bitter, and they probably would have been better with cream and/or sugar. While they're better tasting than Folgers, and they're probably close in taste to the brewed Starbucks equivalent, I think I'll stick with the home brewed stuff.

Brave hmpstd, always willing to experiment for us all! Thanks.

LAURA LEE- This post is completely unrelated to the discussion at hand. You quote from a book I am desperate to lay my hands on.

I'm an India based actor, and I am travelling to London mid Jan to audition for a film based on the book, Hand Ruesch's The Great Thirst ( Also, The South of The Heart / The Arab).

Have tried the local libraries-they have no copies, amazon etc.- they can only deliver to India by Feb 1st earliest, so I would really really appreciate it if I could buy this book of you, or if you could courier it to me and I could send it back to you once i'm done with the audition.

I know this is a strange request, coming from a stranger, but alas, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers".

my email id is raaghavchanana@gmail.com, if you're up for this, pl email me and I'll send you my address, and am happy to pay for the courier cost, or to buy the book of you.

Looking forward to a response at your earliest convenience.

Thanks.
Raaghav

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