Pure Indulgence Instant Coffee in Jar, Dark Roast, 6.7-Ounce, 190 gram

I am reviewing several instant coffees at the same time, and the same review will be found for all of them. My reviews are based on two criteria: How it tastes, and how well I wake up with it. Quick disclaimer, I am generally a health nut, with one exception, coffee. I am aware that instant coffee is not exactly in the healthy food category, but this is a choice that I make because I just don't have time to brew an actual pot of coffee. I'm starting with my worst, and will work my way down to my favorite, also note, I drink my coffee black. 6th Place: Davidoff Cafe Rich Aroma Instant Coffee This coffee has a great aroma, but tastes like Folgers (dirty dishwater). I was actually very disappointed as I had high expectations. I can deal with Folgers flavor, but this coffee made me feel awful; the same sick feeling that I get from Folgers instant coffee. (I swear Folgers must have some sort of contaminant in it.) I gave it a second chance, and felt just as bad. In the recycling it went. I tried to save the glass container, but the design is so ridiculous, that I couldn't even find a use for it. Flavor Rank: #6 Stimulant Rank: #6 5th Place: Jacob's Coffee Jacobs Kronung Instant I would say this coffee is a little better in flavor than the Davidoff, but not by much. And this coffee didn't make feel particularly well either. I wouldn't waste my money on either this one or the Davidoff brand. Flavor Rank: #5 Stimulant Rank: #5 4th Place: Buen dia by Juan Valdez Classic 100% Colombian Freeze Dried Coffee This coffee is okay in flavor, I don't feel sick from it, and the stimulant effect is moderate - more than the Mount Hagen, but less than some of the others reviewed. So the flavor is middle of the pack, and the stimulant effect is middle of the pack. It's okay if you're a moderate coffee drinker, but there are definitely better options. Flavor Rank: #4 Stimulant Rank: #3 3rd Place: Mount Hagen Freeze Dried Instant Coffee This coffee is absolutely yummy! The flavor is delicious, and just really makes you enjoy your first cup of coffee. But the weakness of the stimulant effect placed it below some of the others. I need three cups of this just to get going. I now only drink this one if I want to enjoy a nice cup of coffee, but have no need for large amounts of caffeine. Flavor Rank: #1 Stimulant Rank: #4 2nd Place: Douwe Egberts Pure Gold Instant Coffee The flavor of this coffee is quite good (not as tasty as the Mount Hagen organic stuff, but it is definitely more caffeinated). This coffee was on the top of my list until I found that Douwe Egberts offers a stronger flavor/darker blend (the next review). The stimulant effect is good, and the flavor is good. However the flavor of this one is a little weaker than the darker roast Douwe Egberts Pure Indulgence. If the Pure indulgence wasn't available, I would settle for this one. Flavor Rank: #3 Stimulant Rank: #1 (tie) 1st place: Douwe Egberts Pure Indulgence Instant Coffee This one is the winner. The Pure Gold is lighter in flavor than this one, and I don't care for it quite as much. Both have equal stimulant effect; with either of the Douwe Egberts two cups and I'm good for the day. I often feel I don't need a third cup half way through my day to keep going. The flavor isn't quite as good as the Mount Hagen, but it is the next best. And what it lacks in flavor is made up for in better stimulant effect. Thus is this my number one choice for now. Flavor Rank: #2 Stimulant Rank: #1 (tie)

This is the best instant coffee! I don’t brew regular coffee since I found this brand and all the strengths it offers. Smooth flavor and the quality is excellent!

Don't suppose you can do much, but very disappointed that all three jars were inspected by customs, and the lids on the jars were not reinstalled properly !!!I I had coffee all over the inside the bubble wrap and the shipping box. So it looks as though I'm out $100. 00.

I rarely write reviews but for all my fellow coffee snobs out there - I feel a strong obligation to make this product known to you. We travel a lot and visit family and I just cannot take drinking coffee flavored water anymore. So I have been trying different instant coffees so I can bring my own. While this is not a perfect solution, it definitely is a very good substitution. It does taste like instant coffee but the flavor is bold and the caffeine level is, what seems to be, good enough to give that jolt that I am used to. It dissolved quickly in hot water (I used two scoops in a regular mug) and has a very appealing crema that formed at the surface. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who has a palate for strong, bold espresso based coffee. It will at least get you through until you can find the closest coffee shop.

Admittedly I am a bit of a coffee snob. I’ll say that up front. Ordinarily, I don’t even buy regular ground coffee. I buy whole green beans and roast the coffee myself in small batches, grind it with a professional grinder usually found in fancy coffee shops, and I prefer to make a cold brew style. I’m really just telling you this to give you a bit of perspective when you read my review of how these coffees taste — no, I am not going to use the term “cupping!” So you may well wonder why in the world I’m drinking instant coffee? Well, when you need a quick and convenient cup of coffee, nothing beats instant! I tried a lot of different brands. My parents always had Tasters’ Choice when I was growing up, and my girlfriend was keen on Folgers. I went through the supermarket brands and tried Starbucks’ Via. All terrible. Then I ventured onto Amazon, and there were some interesting new ones: Davidoff, Juan Valdez, Mount Hagen. Horrid. I ended up with a couple which are worth mentioning — Jacobs (originally German) and Douwe Egberts (orginally Dutch), and it is interesting in how much variability there is between sub-brands (they are all owned by Kraft Foods now). To make things as controlled as possible, I tasted these blind, along with a friend. Each cup was prepared with 3 grams of coffee mixed into 200 ml of water brought to 98 degrees Celsius, mixed and allowed to rest for a minute before tasting. Jacobs Krönung (which means “crown”). Dry appearance: irregular crystalline pieces of medium brown color. Dry aroma: dry, slightly pungent, herbaceous, stewed tomatoes, cloying sweetness, barbecue sauce Wet appearance: uniformly murky brown and bilious Wet aroma: surprisingly bland generic “coffee” aroma Flavor: Herbaceous and oddly bitter, flavors do not blend well, stewed spinach, rancid oil, old stale coffee. Bottom line: very disappointing, overall I had high hopes for this as a bolder version of Cronat Gold, but like a stereo that distorts and clips when the volume is too high, it just didn’t work. Jacobs Cronat Gold Dry appearance: irregular crystalline pieces of light brown color. Dry aroma: very faint, dry, sandy, dusty Wet appearance: uniformly murky brown and bilious Wet aroma: mild, faint generic coffee aroma, light and fruitless Flavor: Mild enough that the bitterness is not overwhelming, very little flavor at all, quite bland, subtle roasted grains. Bottom line: palatable to drink with tolerable bitterness, but not enjoyable, succeeding largely because it has almost no flavor. Douwe Egberts Pure Gold Dry appearance: irregular crystalline pieces of light brown color. Dry aroma: dry, faint dusty aroma, mildly acrid, acidic, slight generic coffee aroma. Wet appearance: uniformly murky brown and bilious Wet aroma: harshly bitter, acidic, repugnant, battery acid Flavor: strong acid flavor, stomach acid, vomit, bile, sour, fruitless. Bottom line: A huge let down, as I was hoping for a milder version of Pure Indulgence, but again it become very unbalanced and almost like pure acid. I had a strong instinct to to spit this out; quite difficult to drink. Douwe Egberts Pure Indulgence Dry appearance: irregular crystalline pieces of medium dark color. Dry aroma: roasted coffee beans, tomato paste, sundried tomatoes Wet appearance: uniformly murky brown and bilious Wet aroma: mildy acidic, roasted grains, bland, “diner coffee” Flavor: mildly bitter, bitterness balanced by coffee flavors, “diner coffee” Bottom line: If you have ever had coffee from a small diner, like Denny’s, or some other humble restaurant or bar, then you know the flavor. The strength of the coffee blends well with the bitter finish; it seems like low quality fresh brewed coffee from old grounds. Amazingly, this is the winner! Douwe Egberts Pure Indulgence. It’s palatable, and it’s not terrible. In fact, I would believe it might be brewed from coffee grounds of some sort. It’s not in any way comparable to freshly roasted, freshly ground coffee. There is no fruit, sharpness, or complexity. It is full of flavor defects. However, you could pass this off as non-instant, which is something of a miracle apparently. I could certainly drink this! It’s almost enjoyable when you compare it to everything else in fact.

Great product, great taste, Been drinking this brand for 30+ years - best instant available. Problem with this shipment was when it was crammed into the box the lid was forced off and product spilled out.

Like a few others this is the first time I'm purchasing my Coffee online. I said to myself the grocery store doesn't offer many choices and since the pricing is about the same I'm going to explore Amazon for a quality dark instant that delivers a rich strong flavor as if I ground my own beans. Note: I always toss in 4 - 5 teaspoons in a medium size cup and top it off with Hazelnut Fridged Creamer. This is only the 3rd Brand I've tried: 1) Cafe Tastle Platinum Espresso - I figured I would come out of the gate with an Espresso especially with such a fancy name I would hit a home run and feel like a King simutaniously...Lol. First thing I noticed about this blend is it didn't mix easily into the hot water I usually Nuke for 2 minutes in the microwave every morning. Not an issue just an observation that all three of these products reacted the same when mixed in hot water over the garbage from the Supermarket.....I assume that's a good thing because these freeze drieds are richer and milkier over the average brands. So you never have worry about it boiling over the cup and make a mess on the counter....hate when that happens. It's an excellent quality coffee but never delivered that rich strong flavor I was seeking especially since they branded it Espresso. 2) Jacobs Coffee Cronat Gold - Very good value since the price is in the $10.00 range and it too tasted fine but didn't come through with that strong flavor I'm seeking from a dark roast. Have no clue what Cronat means and wasn't curious enough to look it up. Now I'm thinking maybe my Hazelnut Creamer is killing any chance of that happening. Also, even though the coffee is very good quality the Cap on the jar is a tacky cheap plastic that irritated me every time I opened the jar. A guest would think the coffee must be very cheap too so I dumped Jacobs coffee into the Cafe Tastle Platinum jar...Aaaah....looks much better in the cupboard. In my opinion the marketing and quality control team for Jacobs are the dumbest of the three because most people don't know what the heck Cronat means and I would never have allowed my product to be packaged and released with such a cheap, tacky, Cap on the jar. That stuck out the most in my memory of Jacobs....sorry team Jacobs... attention to detail gang. 3) Douwe Edgberts Pure Indulgence - It must be human nature the things that irritate us most stick out in our minds and override all the good about a person or things. So let me just say I was in no major rush for any delivery but this product arrived 14 days after placing my order...not good. Had to get that off my my chest because that's the only thing that stuck in my head until I tasted it. That said.....this was the only one of the three that broke through my Creamer and tasted similar to that dark coffee flavor as if from a ground coffee machine. Also, the Cap on this jar sealed the best of any brand I've tried but trying to remove it is not so easy. You don't unscrew it screw it to take it off.....you wiggle it off and press down on it to put it back on.... so even though you get a good air tight seal ain't worth the hassle wiggling it off every every time to use it. MY PLAN - I will continue this exploration on maybe 3 - 5 highly rated dark roast blends giving me numerous options to drink any of the blends "AS IS", "MIX WITH A CHEAP $6 STORE BRAND" to enhance the flavor and stretch my dollars, or MOST LIKELY - "MIX & MATCH THESE BLENDS USING 1000 YEARS OF THEIR EXPERTICE AND DEVELOPE MY OWN BLEND" and place my perfected blend into what I believe is be the nicest jar....I MAY EVEN CREATE MY OWN STICKER...Lol. BOTTOM LINE - All three are very good and I would purchase again. Why not 5 Stars for any of the three? Because the one that delivers a smooth the dark roast flavor in the $9 - $12 range and makes it happen using only a few teaspoons is the one that will get 5 STARS.😊

This coffee is exactly what it says, Pure Indulgence. I usually steer away from instant coffee because I remember the cardboard taste of others back in the day but due to time constraints at work and life, I never have time to brew a good cup so the search began. This coffee is nicknamed "Bam" at my job because the strength of it is amazing and within 2 sips, you are ready to take on the day wide awake. I usually drink 4 cups a day of regular brewed coffee but with this, just need one great cup in the morning and I'm ready to tackle 14 hrs of insane work. I always keep this on hand and for those emergency days when I need coffee with a punch. Also, the aroma is just wonderful. It smells like what coffee should smell like, with no bitterness. Just smooth flavor and an amazing aroma. I highly recommend this coffee to anyone that enjoys a nice strong cup in the morning to get your gears running.