Thursday, March 2, 2017

Whither instant?


[Mrs. White, indeed. Life, October 20, 1972. Click for a larger, milder view.]

I found this advertisement while thinking about instant coffee in jars, now nearly vanished from American supermarket shelves. I like the remark from one of the Maxwell House tasters (second small photograph from the left): “It tastes more like coffee.” Well, yes, if you are an instant coffee drinker to begin with (as the participants in this study were), you would expect coffee to taste like instant coffee.

In 2014, Smithsonian looked into instant coffee’s history and prospects: “Is There a Future For Instant Coffee?” There is. The Washington Post covered the same ground(s), with charts: “Almost half of the world actually prefers instant coffee.” The Post’s conclusion: “The only real exception to the instant coffee craze is the U.S.”

Related reading
All OCA coffee posts (Pinboard)

comments: 3

Slywy said...

My aunt's favorite instant coffee was Maxim, which I remember because I stayed with her a few times and liked it. There are still three or four brands on the shelves at the local Treasure Island. I'm very fond of Mt. Hagen, carried by Amazon and the People's Food Co-op in Ann Arbor, and Café Altura, carried by Amazon. Julius Meinl also had a good instant coffee, but I haven't seen it for a while at the café near Wrigley Field in Chicago.

Slywy said...

Here's the Julius Meinl coffee online.

http://shop.meinl.com/default/meinl-instant-coffee-100g.html

Michael Leddy said...

I tried Mt. Hagen after reading about it as the best instant. It was good, but it tasted like instant coffee. :)

I’ve never heard of Meinl, but I like that label. Thanks for the recommendation.