I do prefer my REI purchased thermal mug french press but as for instant coffee's the Via is pretty good. I have found that the bold has a bit more flavor than the regular. The regular seems weak or watered down. By comparison, my normal coffee preference is just plain black, nothing to robust.

I have a confession to make, it will upset the coffee snobs here. I enjoy instant coffee. Granted, it isnt like a nice cup of dunks, but I dont mind the taste. Likely due from years spent in the military, but I use it quite often. I am not proud of it-but I do enjoy it. Camping or no.

I happen to like Nescafé Instant granules for normal drinking, so it's probably not coincidence that I also like their Cappuccino sachets. Obviously I'm not a coffee snob. The sachets include sugar, but I add another spoonful.

More importantly, they include a milk substitute that I find tolerable. I'd rather real milk, but I'm happy enough drinking this that it's worth keeping some in the house for when I run out of real milk. It probably happens less than once a month but means I can postpone a trip to the supermarket when it does.

The sachets become invaluable when walking and I don't want to lug real milk with me in a vacuum flask. I stockpile more than I need in case some disaster disrupts my milk supply line.

For me the other convenient hiking drink is Oxo. I can dissolve a beef Oxo cube in hot water and be happy without milk or sugar.

I went back to check if Starbucks are still doing the free tasters of Via (in the UK).
Not only are they still doing it; but you can try a blind test against a ground coffee. I preferred the instant. And they give you a '£1 off' voucher for a pack of Via and also voucher for a free tall coffee of your choice on your next visit.
The Sock

The main ingredient in these Nescafe Instant Sachets is Sucrose then Glucose Syrup. The instant coffee content is only 10.6% by weight according to the ingredients list. Far, far to sweet for me, I'm afraid. I don't take any sugar in my tea and only half a teaspoon of Tate and Lyle pure sucrose is acceptable in my coffee.

They are also way, way to expensive. Imagine your a coffee fiend and you get hooked on the 3 sachets of Starbucks a day during the working week (there will no doubt be a secret Starbucks ingredient to make the weak willed coffee drinker become a Starbucks Instant Coffee junkie). Annual costs are £300 or around $500. Utter, utter madness.

Also today it is reported that Coca Cola sells over £1 Billion ($1.5 Billion USD) of the sweet sickly tooth rotting diabetes inducing gut rot in the UK, making it the biggest selling single individual brand in the UK Supermarkets. The amount sold in the US must be absolutely staggering.

If you have a Lidl nearby check out the Instant Milk Powder and the instant Granarom Coffee (I still like the Nescafe Gold and Original BTW). Mix up to suit your taste and package individual portions in recyled individual honey breakfast glass jars.



Not only will you save money rather than buying the individual sachets but you can actually get a decent cup of instant coffee.

i have an absolutely obscene amount of the SB Via Bold packets that a friend gave me...basically a huge gallon-sized bag of the samples that were sitting around her store and not being used.
if anyone would like to try it out, i'll send you a couple packets in the mail. they're not bad at all...assuming you like SB coffee - which has always seemed to taste a little 'burnt' to me, anyway.

maybe just try one and throw a couple in the BOB?

haha, and NO, I do not have a vested interest in SB or any of their affiliates.

It does taste burnt, I think they over-roast the beans. Thanks for the offer, but I'll stick with coarse ground French Roast and a French Press.

...just got done cleaning my french press in the cleaning closet here at work.

fire-starting is not the only skill which neccesitates redundancy

But wouldn't that involve going within 100yrds of a Starbucks?

The main ingredient in the ones I use is milk powder. Then sugar, then vegetable oil, then lactose, then instant coffee. The proportion of coffee is about the same, though. That's partly because it's light. The normal instant coffee I make is 14g of sugar to 2.6g of coffee.

That's part of why I keep them for emergencies, or when the convenience is worth it, rather than for every-day use. The actual price varies; they seem to have special offers several times a year, which is when I buy. The price I just checked in Asda's online store is £1 for 10 sachets, or 10p a drink (I guess around 15c?), which is way less than the 75c being advocated at the start of this thread. A 300g jar of instant coffee is £4, which is around 3.5p a drink, plus milk and sugar. So it's maybe twice as expensive, but even if I drank it all the time it'd only be 30p a day.

I don't mean to boast, but I'm now rich enough that I can splash out 15c on a drink occasionally.