Now, let me start by saying that normally my first choice in instant coffee would be Nescafe Gold Blend. Mainly because it's the coffee my mum had always bought and the one I'd grown to love myself. Until I began working in an office I hadn't tried that many different brands but now, I can certainly say that there are some poor brands of instant coffee out there!

Now I am reviewing Douwe Egberts Pure Gold variety. I didn't buy this myself, my mum bought us two huge 200g jars as they were recently on offer in Asda, two for £6 which I think is a really good offer.

Douwe Egberts have been making coffee since 1753 and their English head office is based in Slough.

More information can be found at - www.douwe-egberts.co.uk

For the purpose of this review, I have just made myself a nice mug of coffee (2 sugars!) so I'll start on the process of making the drink. I think it is essential that milk is added to the coffee in the mug before the boiling water as this can give coffee a burnt background flavour as the coffee beans are burnt by the boiling water. Adding the milk first gives the coffee a creamier result which is how I like mine. The instant coffee disolves well, initially leaving some bits of the coffee floating in the top but these disolve in under a minute in the hot water.

The coffee in my opinion isn't as strong as Nescafe Gold Blend so I add a really heaped teaspoon to my mug to get the desired strength. The taste is also a little bitter but not so much to ruin the taste. The aroma from the jar smells slightly bitter too so the carries over to the finished product. The taste is quite smooth and obviously the strength gets more intense the more coffee you add, the bitterness also increases if you add more.

The jar itself is great, I love these types of jar as you can keep them to store other things such as pasta and rice. It is a glass jar with a pull off lid secured with a rubber seal which helps to lock in the freshness. The label is gold and has limited information on it. The statement on the label from the company reads 'These beans have been roasted using Douwe Egberts expertise to give a medium and well balanced flavour suitable for drinking at any time of the day. I would agree with this statement as I had a coffee about an hour before I went to bed last night and it didn't affect my sleep.

Overall I'd say this was a nice coffee, it comes top 3 in my choices of instant coffee's and I would buy again if it was on offer. This coffee is available in all large supermarkets but may not be in local stores.

Thank you for reading my review.