There is no denying it, I love coffee, and I love the taste nearly as much as the buzz I get from the caffeine. I need it in a morning to get me going and I need it throughout the day to keep me energised and focused on the tasks ahead. As a student I relied upon it to get me through writing my essays and the many hours I spent revising and now in my mid twenties I am still relying upon coffee to give me a kick up the bum. The only downside of drinking so much caffeine is the buzz it gives me and now that I don't have to be up all night studying finishing off that final closing paragraph of an essay it was time to relinquish my dependency on it. I felt that if I cut down on the amount of caffeine I consumed per day then I wouldn't wake up in a morning feeling like I had just gone to bed because of the caffeine in my system stopping and interrupting my sleep. I switched upon the advice of my mother to Nescafe Gold Blend Decaff, the same coffee that I drank but without all of the caffeine in the hope my addiction and need would subside and I would become half human again.

The Nescafe brand has been around since the 1930's and I it has been a firm favourite in my parents household since I was a child. They use it religiously, unless they have a family dinner in which case the Cypriot coffee (packed with caffeine) comes out.

Decaffeinated Nescafe coffee didn't become available until the late 1980's and wasn't something I had ever considered drinking if I am being totally honest. For me drinking coffee is all about the taste and the freshness of the bean on the palate, one thing I don't feel I get from trendy high street stores like Costa Coffee or Café Nero where the taste is lacking and isn't sharp enough for me. I like the taste of coffee as soon as it hits my palette, the sharp, rich aroma that fills my nostrils as the hot water mixes with the coffee granules in my mug and I wanted all of this without the high levels of caffeine.

The jar of Nescafe Gold Blend Decaff is easy to spot upon your supermarket shelf because in my local Tesco they house all of the Nescafe coffee products together and this particular jar has a bright blue lid (despite the photo accompanying this product on Ciao having a red lid) with the words Nescafe Original being placed upon a background of a gold bean with the word 'Decaff' being strategically placed in black writing underneath those words. Inside the jar there is a gold foil top which you need to open by popping it with a spoon and then you will find that there are no coffee beans as such because in order to preserve the aroma and fuller flavour this Decaff coffee is what they call a freeze dried soluble coffee which resemble gravy granules to me, they are a light brown colour and crumble easily if you squish them between your fingers or with a spoon which denotes that as soon as they come into contact with boiling water they dissolve easily.

Now having been promised that I would get all the great taste and the rich aroma of my favourite NESCAFÉ coffee, without all of the caffeine I was feeling pretty confident that I would be ale to enjoy my cup of coffee but still sleep like a baby waking up feeling refreshed without rushing to the kitchen for the coffee jar before going to work. Sadly for me this wasn't at all the case. As I mentioned I like the taste and the aroma of coffee that is why I drink it and to be honest I am not too sure what I expected from decaffineated coffee because I had never tried it before. The aroma, although it smelt like coffee wasn't particularly exciting. It seemed to be a watered down version of the normal coffee, whilst it have off a sharp coffee aroma it was lacking any body or wasn't at all as rich as the fuilly caffeinated brand and I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the taste after this dissapointment. I like to smell things before I eat or drink them, usully avoiding putting anything in my mouth that I don't like the smell of. When I have my usual Nescafe Gold Blend the first thing I notice is the smell as I pour the water into my mug and leave it for a few minutes to make that perfect cup of coffee and with this decaff version there was a faint smell of coffee but without the caffeine there isnt an awful lot to get excited about. On a scale of 1 to 10, the aroma gets a 4 from me, with the fully caffeinated version scoring an 8/10. This should give readers an indication of how lacking it is.

The aroma was firstly disappointing and I hoped that when I put my coffee to my lips that the taste wasn't as bad as the aroma suggested it would be. Whereas my usual coffee is smooth on the lips and quite a lot thicker in consistanty this was much more watery and had distinctly lacked any taste of coffee, the flavour for me just wasn't there and the bitter aftertaste was too much for me to bear, so much so that I couldn't finish the first cup. I take my coffee without milk, cream or sugar, I don't see the point in ruining a perfectly good cup of coffee by adding things too it and after deciding to give the Decaff the benefit of the doubt and try it with some milk it was just as awful and the bitter taste wasn't masked by the milk, so I have permanently switched back to Nescafe Gold Blend and instead limiting the number of cups I drink per day because I don't see the point in paying for something I don't like the taste of.

The flavour wasn't rich, I couldn't actually taste any coffee beans at all when drinking either with or without milk and my mouth was left feeling like a tramps old sock after finishing. Over a week I have tried 8-9 cups of the coffee and each time I have been left hugely dissapointed. It is not a gold standard I'm afraid and I really wouldn't recommend it as an alternative for those looking to reduce their caffeine intake. On taste, I rate the coffee as a 2/10 whereas the caffeinated version again received 8/10.

Despite my dislike for this product you can find it in any supermarket, in my local Tesco it is £2.74 for 100g although it is currently on offer to buy two jars for £4 and a 200g jar retails for £5.40 although again it is on offer for £7 if you buy two jars. I personally wouldn't bother, it didn't give me the rich aroma I liked and it didn't taste similar to the fully caffeinated version and isn't something I will be buying again..