I never used to be a fan of coffee, but I decided one day to teach myself to love it, and from milky sweet Starbucks lattes to pure espresso, I attained my goal. I normally have my coffee black, with no sugar, but the desire for flavour sometimes gets the better of me, leading me towards the far unhealthier lattes, loaded with flavoured syrup. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just have our coffees with a bit of flavour, instead of dealing with the sticky stuff? Well, you can.
This is the Flavour Collective, Douwe Egberts' range of flavoured instant coffee. It comes in four flavours: vanilla, chocolate, caramel and hazelnut. I forewent the hazelnut, as I'm not really a fan, but the others were mightily tempting, what with vanilla and caramel being my favourite kind of latte. Upon opening these jars, the aroma is magnificent. That distinct coffee smell, but with an overpowering sweetness, it really left me eager to dissolve these bad boys in some boiling water.
Once I had, I was ready to settle down and enjoy some nice, simple, flavoured coffee. The jar states that you should use one tablespoon of coffee per cup, but I found it not strong enough for my liking. I do like my coffee pretty damn strong though, so maybe it's just a taste thing. As for the flavours themselves, they certainly are bold. Not quite as pronounced as the aroma of the grounds suggests, but that's to be expected. The vanilla and caramel are my favourites, while the chocolate did leave a bit of an odd taste in my mouth, so they're not perfect. But they certainly are a nice change to your regular instant coffee, and carry about the same caloric content. I'll definitely be keeping a jar on standby in case I want something flavoursome, and I still have to try out the iced coffee recipe to experience these flavours in a different light.
My rating: 4/5
They're lovely, aren't they? I actually bought the hazelnut with the intention of trying to replicate my regular Thursday hazelnut americano from Starbucks. I found that two teaspoons of the hazelnut coffee plus two sweeteners and a dash of milk does the trick. Definitely experiment with sweeteners (splenda) because they remove any residual 'dry' after taste and make them perfectly mellow. I agree - chocolate was a let down, and no sweetener can save it :)
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