Where's my sprinkles! (Maxwell House Cappuccino)

Member Name: hypno06

Product:	Maxwell House Cappuccino
Date:	15/08/09 (119 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheaper than Costa.

Disadvantages: Nowhere near as nice as Costa.

In my never ending (or so it seems) quest to reach that compromise between spending out on a daily visit to Starbucks and Costa Coffee when I am at work, and having the standard cups of coffee that are provided in the office (which are made by our tea lady aged 86, who has questionable levels of hygeine, but making our coffees gives her a purpose in life, so we can't sack her.....), I have been buying sachets of instant cappuccino for about a year now.

The aged tea lady (think of Mrs Overall from Acorn Antiques, and you are getting there) doesn't do "newfangled coffee", so is happy to leave the making of my cup to me.......and over the last year I have tried numerous shops own brands, and the Nescafe mocha, latte and cappuccino....with varying results.

Out of these, the Nescafe has always come out tops, and for many months seemed to be on multibuy offer in the supermarkets, making it an attractive, and cost effective compromise in the "trendy coffee" department. But recently there have been no such offers that I have seen. So when I saw Maxwell House selling a box of 10 cappuccino sachest sachets for £1.69, I thought that was worth a try - after all, this means a cup of coffee for less than 17p......a fraction of the cost of a medium cap from Costa.

These are available in original (which is sweetened) and unsweetened. Even with the sweetened versions, because I have a sweet tooth, I end up adding more sugar or sweetener, so I tend to buy the unsweetened version.

The idea behind these sachets is simple - pour the contents of the sachet into a mug, pour in water that is just off the boil, and stir to a creamy froth.

Then sit back and imagine you are in Starbucks/Pret/Costa/insert coffee shop of your choice here.

But of course, the "idea" does not always resemble the reality.....

Indeed, these are easy to make - I can't fault that. But the end result is quite unlike any other cappuccino I have tried.

If I go into a coffee shop and ask for a cappuccino, I expect a nice frothy top to my drink......a cappuccino, in my experience, is strong coffee, hot milk and a frothy, creamy head on which chocolate sprinkles are added.

Someone ought to tell Maxwell House this, because I think they are aiming for something quite different.

The mixture of coffee and milk powder looks just like that - a cup of instant coffee made with Marvel or Coffee Mate. It has a very thin layer of what could loosely be termed as froth, and on a bad day could be described as "scum"....and there is no provision made for chocolate sprinkles.

I did think that perhaps I had just gotten unlucky with my box - after all, the picture on the front of the box (as above) does show chocolate sprinkles on top of the mug quite clearly - so I thought I had just picked up a random box which had missing choccy......but closer readng of the box shows that they never intended putting the chocolate in the first place! It is not on the instruction, and it is not on the ingredients. I therefore think the box and this product is misleading. Bah.

The taste was ok but uninspiring - it really is just like instant coffee with dried milk/coffee mate. It tastes like Maxwell House with Marvel. Nothing more, nothing less. There were no lumpy powdery bits left in the bottom of the mug, so that gets it an extra star.

As an "ordinary" cup of coffee, it passes the test (and is still preferable to the aged tea lady's version), but as a cappuccino it really doesn't succeed.

This reminds me very much of some of the coffee you can get out of vending machines......and on that basis, I would guess that 17p a cup is cheaper than the extortionate prices you pay from a vending machine......but that really is about as good a recommendation as I can come up with.

I wouldn't buy this again, unless there really was no alternative. I feel that the Nescafe version is much better.

Nutritionwise, each mug has 59 calories and 1.7grams of saturated fat, which from memory is less than the Nescafe version, and is suitable for vegetarians.

Summary: It's not a cappuccino as we know it......!