Drink your cup of instant coffee like an expert!

While enjoying a cup of instant coffee, you can start your assessment with these 5 tasting characteristics: aroma, taste, body, acidity, and aftertaste.

Aroma: Once your instant coffee is mixed with water, the aroma will ascend. The coffee scent heavily affects the drinking experience and prepares for the flavoring step. The coffee aroma reflects the overall quality and freshness as it can expose coffee defects. There are several types of aromas, including nutty, citrus fruit, and floral.

Taste: At this stage, you can identify how your instant coffee tastes. It can be multi-layered with hints of several different tastes. Your coffee might have a flat taste, which might be due to poor processing or coffee storage. Coffee flavor can be influenced by the origin of the beans, roasting, roast levels, and many other factors. You can find various flavors in your coffee, from fruits and flowers to chocolate, spices, and berries.

Body: The body of a coffee refers to how you sense it in your mouth in terms of tongue coating and weight. With milk added to coffee, the mouthfeel will soften and become creamy. Microground instant coffees are premium products, made with a very fine roast and ground coffee infused with instant coffee. These tiny granules enrich the mouthfeel, making the instant coffee experience closer to that of roast and ground. At this stage, you can detect the thickness and heaviness, which can be described as light, medium, or full-bodied. Your mouthfeel sensations could also include watery, buttery, or sugary coffee textures.

Acidity: At this level, you can experience the level of sharpness near the front of the mouth. Acidity doesn’t indicate the pH levels of coffee but the actual perception on the tip of your tongue. Acidity types can be smooth, flat, sharp, lemony, spicy, etc.

Aftertaste: This is the final stage after drinking coffee, where you can identify the amount of time the coffee texture remains in your mouth. Heavy body coffee will tend to leave a strong aftertaste. Descriptions at this stage could be, for example, dry, smooth, smoky, or fruity.

Instant Coffee Cupping

Now that you’ve ready about various tasting characteristics, it’s time to learn how to drink your coffee like a pro. Simply follow the 3 steps listed below: observe, smell, and slurp.

1. Start by observing your cup and comparing the color and texture of the coffee to that of water.
2. Then, have a deep sniff to get an indication of your coffee’s freshness and quality.
3. Finally, slurp the coffee as loudly as you can so it can coat your entire mouth. This step allows aeration, so the scent can travel through your nose. Your tasting and smelling senses work together to identify different flavors in your coffee.

What Does Good-Quality Instant Coffee Taste Like?

It all goes back to the origin of the coffee bean itself, as taste is heavily affected by coffee type in addition to the drying process used. Tasting Arabica coffee, you will identify sweeter flavors in contrast to the earthy and bitter taste of Robusta beans.

Drying processes also affect the aroma and flavor. For instance, the spray-drying process uses hot air to evaporate water from the coffee, which can have negative effects on the original flavors and aroma of the coffee bean. On the other hand, the freeze-drying process, which relies on freezing coffee extract, and sublimation (transforming ice directly to steam) conserves more of the natural flavor of the coffee.

At Sucafina Instant, we are your one-stop shop for instant coffee products. We offer an unparalleled range of instant coffee in bulk and options for shelf-ready formats that satisfy all palates. We offer everything conceivable for brands and retailers – just ask!