There’s a reason instant coffee gets such a bad rap: It usually tastes terrible. Although it’s probably not the ideal choice for your morning cup of joe, instant coffee can be a saving grace when access to fresh-brewed coffee isn’t an option.
Now that more and more specialty coffee roasters are selling instant coffee, we’ve found it’s not always as bad as it used to be — in fact, we dare say it can be pretty good.
In an effort to find the best instant coffee, we’ve tasted options from 19 popular brands.
Considering that the bar is pretty low for instant coffee, we were surprised to find how much of a difference there was between each brand — some smelled and tasted pretty close to freshly brewed coffee, with subtle notes of chocolate or fruit, but others reeked of burnt rubber and tasted bitter, sour, or flat. Here are our favorites.
Our picks
Tastes fresh-brewed, and luscious with milk: Sightglass La Magdalena
Top pick
This instant coffee made an especially pleasurable cup, with notes of dark chocolate when black, and goat’s milk caramel with the addition of milk.
The Sightglass Instant La Magdalena Tolima didn’t taste like instant coffee; one taster likened it to a “freshly brewed pot.” Dark chocolate is the prominent note we tasted when drinking it black, but the addition of milk brings out a lovely toffee and goat’s milk caramel flavor, with a lingering sweet finish.
With milk, it’s an absolute treat — "moreish,” as another taster said. It’s a bold but pleasant cup that we’d happily sip all day long, or whenever we needed some coziness. We didn’t taste the Sightglass instant coffee cold, as the company only recommends preparing it hot, but it’s so good hot that we didn’t feel we were missing out.
Unfortunately, it’s also on the expensive side if you buy just the individual box, which comes with only six servings (the case of 10 boxes comes out to about $2.65 per serving — but it’s a big financial commitment upfront).
Cost per serving: about $4
A bright medium roast: Canyon Instant Coffee
Top pick
These single-serve packets of instant coffee made one of the most nuanced, fresh-tasting cups we tried.
The Canyon Instant Coffee tasted the most like freshly brewed coffee, and it was one of the most nuanced cups we drank. One taster noted, “This one tastes surprisingly like decent medium-roast coffee, but sour and a bit papery on the finish.” Another thought the aroma had hints of “chocolate, cherry, and a little bit of brown paper.”
We all found that its sour notes grew more intense as we drank it, but the acidity wasn’t overwhelming. The bottom line: a very drinkable cup. The downside is that, like our pick from Sightglass, it’s quite pricey per serving.
And we’ve noticed that it’s often sold out on Canyon’s website. You may be able to find it elsewhere online for a bit more money, but if not, consider one of our other favorites.
Cost per serving: about $3.30
Bold and berry-forward: Swift Coffee Mainstay
Top pick
This is a bold coffee with rich flavor, only a slight bitterness, and a good bit of tartness. It tastes predominantly of blackberry jam and has some deep roasty notes.
Although Swift Coffee Mainstay made one of the larger volumes of the instant coffees we tested (10 ounces), it was still a notably strong cup of coffee. Despite its intensity, it’s only faintly bitter, instead leaning into tart berry notes. Our tasters found that it tasted like blackberry jam, and considered it to have an authentic coffee flavor.
It tastes just as good iced, and the addition of milk brings some sweetness to it without overwhelming the roastiness of the coffee. “Instant coffee has come a long way,” quipped one taster.
Cost per serving: about $2 (dependent on purchase size)
Mild and easy-to-drink: Verve Streetlevel
Top pick
We found this instant coffee to be mild, a touch malty, and overall totally serviceable.
The Verve Instant Coffee had a very mild aroma that was a touch malty and papery, with a pleasant roasted scent. We found it a bit more sour than the Canyon coffee, and we picked up a slight berry or citrus zing.
It’s a little bland when brewed with the recommended 10 ounces of water, but more balanced and flavorful if you use just 9 ounces of water. It has some acidity, but its mild flavor isn’t likely to offend anyone.
Cost per serving: about $2.70
An espresso that’s great iced: Blue Bottle Instant Espresso
Top pick
With a smooth, rich bitterness and notes of blackberry, the Blue Bottle Craft Instant Espresso is very drinkable.
The Blue Bottle Craft Instant Espresso has good depth of flavor for an instant coffee, with an appropriate level of bitterness for an imitation espresso. It has a robust, traditional coffee aroma and flavor, with one taster calling it “the coffee-ist.”
Made into an iced latte, it was one of our favorite iced instant coffees, as the bitterness grounds the flavor of the coffee amid the milk, with some nuttiness and depth still coming through. It tasted like a classic iced coffee, with only a faint hint of the metallic scent that we’ve noticed in most iced instant coffee.
Cost per serving: about $2 for the Multiserve jar and about $3 for individual sachets
A budget diner-like option: Mount Hagen Organic
Top pick
This instant coffee has a decent body and pretty generic flavor, and unlike our other picks, you can buy it in a jar as well as in single-serve packets.
The flavor of the Mount Hagen Instant Coffee wasn’t that pronounced, and we found it more watery than the Canyon or Verve coffees. However, it has a decent body that “lingers on the tongue nicely,” as one taster put it.
We all agreed that the flavor came out more as the coffee sat for a minute or two. We think it’s a solid cup of generic coffee, like you’d expect to find at a diner. Mount Hagen also sells this coffee in a larger, 3.53-ounce jar.
Cost per serving: about 36¢ per packet or 28¢ from the jar
Other instant coffees worth considering
If you like a little smoke: The Waka Coffee Quality Instant Coffee had a smoky, slightly burnt aroma that was a little like barbecue. It became more balanced and mellow as it sat for a few minutes, and it has a sweet finish, but we detected a slight rubbery flavor that made it less appealing than our picks.
If you like Starbucks coffee: The Starbucks Via Instant Colombia Medium Roast Coffee was hands down the most polarizing cup of coffee we tasted. Some of us found it acrid and burnt, others picked up some sweetness and toasty notes. Since, unlike most instant coffee, the Via Instant contains some actual ground coffee, we also detected some grit or sediment in our cups.
But testers who were familiar with Starbucks coffee said it tasted just like the real thing, and it was one of the favorites when we filmed an instant coffee taste test with some other Wirecutter staffers in 2019. If you’re a fan of Starbucks coffee, you’ll probably like this one, and we think it would hold up well to cream and sugar.
If you like fruity, third-wave coffee: The Tandem Coffee Time and Temperature Instant Coffee had a strong sour flavor and prominent fruity notes that became overwhelming for some of us the longer we sipped it. If you’re partial to fruitier coffee with a pronounced sour flavor, we think you’ll like the Tandem coffee, but it’s not for everyone. It was one of our favorites when we tested a few high-end instant coffees in 2019, but it totally flopped in our video taste test.
If you only drink iced coffee: The Partners Jumpstart Specialty Instant Coffee is one of the few instant coffees that we didn’t enjoy hot. When hot, we found it tasted burnt, with little nuance to it. But we enjoyed it when iced: It’s fruity, with notes of raisins and malt, and it’s still amenable to milk, which brings out a hint of milk chocolate and counteracts some of the bitterness. It fondly reminded one taster of raisin bran.
How we picked and tested
To narrow our list of brands to test, we included instant coffee sold only two ways: bulk in jars and single-serving packets with at least six or more packets per box. We thought that getting fewer than six packets wasn’t very practical for most people, especially if you drink at least two cups per sitting.
We also didn’t include single-serving sachets or disposable pour-over options that brew in a more traditional way by steeping pre-ground coffee.
We thought it would be an unfair comparison to truly instant coffee, which is made from spray- or freeze-dried coffee concentrate. It’s also more complicated to try to make a pour-over than to simply make instant coffee in water, especially when you’re on the go.
We avoided decaffeinated instant coffee, and options that had added sugar, creamer, and other flavorings. And we stuck to medium roasts for the most recent round of testing, because we learned in previous tests that dark and light roasts tend to be too polarizing.
Over the years, multiple Wirecutter staff members have helped taste instant coffees (we even filmed one round), but most recently we’ve enlisted several members of Wirecutter’s kitchen team to participate in a brand-concealed taste test.
We brewed all of the instant coffees according to the package instructions and tasted them black, evaluating their aroma, flavor, balance, and body.
We took note of any undissolved granules, and how easy the packages or containers were to open, which is particularly important for outdoor excursions.
After eliminating the worst offenders, we tasted our favorites a second time the following day with a fresh palate, this time black and with milk added. Though there were a couple of polarizing brands, we were in complete agreement on our favorites and least favorites.
This article was edited by Marilyn Ong and Marguerite Preston.
The competition
This is not a comprehensive list of everything we’ve tested for this guide, just what’s still available.
The Café Altura Instant Organic Coffee wasn’t particularly fragrant, but we did detect subtle notes of hot cocoa and tar. It had a charred aftertaste, but it wasn’t as overwhelming as that of the acrid Starbucks or Folgers coffee. It definitely offered some semblance of actual coffee, albeit mediocre.
The Jacobs Krönung Instant Coffee smelled of burning rubber and tasted watery, with a predominantly burnt aftertaste.
The Maxwell House Original Roast Instant Coffee had an undeniably malty aroma. It tasted incredibly watery, like someone had diluted a few drops of malt syrup. Its stale, slightly charred aftertaste was also unpleasant.
The Folgers Classic Roast is definitely not “the best part of waking up.” Aside from its predominantly rubbery flavor, we found it thin, watery, and overwhelmingly astringent.
The Café Bustelo Espresso Instant Coffee was weak and watery. No one thought this coffee was outstanding, but since it’s so inexpensive, it’s a serviceable option if our picks aren’t available.
Alpine Start Original Blend Medium Roast Instant Coffee was incredibly polarizing in our tests, so we had to dismiss it.
The Nescafé Clásico tasted of chlorine and metal. It was also too watery, with low acidity.
The Four Sigmatic Think Organic Coffee Instant did very well in our tests, but since it’s not entirely instant coffee (it’s half instant coffee, half mushroom powder) and had a number of suspect reviews and questionable health claims, we couldn’t recommend it in good faith.
Meet your guides
Michael Sullivan
Michael Sullivan has been a staff writer on the kitchen team at Wirecutter since 2016. Previously, he was an editor at the International Culinary Center in New York. He has worked in various facets of the food and restaurant industry for over a decade.
Ciara Murray Jordan
Ciara Murray Jordan is a writer on the kitchen team at Wirecutter. She previously worked as an artisanal cheesemaker on a small farm in Vermont.
Further reading
Hear Me Out: Instant Coffee Is, in Fact, Good
by Marguerite Preston
Not all instant coffee tastes gross. The newest options are pretty delicious — and can save the day on chaotic mornings.We Tasted 4 of the Newest (and Most Photogenic) Instant Coffees
by Alex Arpaia
A Wirecutter taste test reveals that the new crop of fancy instant coffee brands are not worth the price.
Perk Up a Coffee Lover with These Smart Gifts
by Mari Uyehara and Samantha Schoech
We recommend kettles, carafes, beans, and some inspired surprises for your favorite caffeine fiend.Wirecutter’s Best Picks for Coffee and Tea Lovers
by Wirecutter Staff
Give your caffeine routine a jolt with these Wirecutter-recommended electric kettles, coffee makers, tea steepers, mug warmers, and more.
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