18 carat coffee (Nescafe Gold Blend)

Member Name: hypno06

Product:	Nescafe Gold Blend
Date:	10/08/09 (85 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good quality coffee at a reasonable price

Disadvantages: None

My name is Hypno and I am a coffe-holic......there, I've said it.

However, I won't be enrolling on any 12 step programme to rid myself of my addiction. I like coffee......I can give it up any time I want to......but I just don't want to right now.

I like "proper" coffee - but I don't like cleaning the cafetiere. I like frequenting the many coffee shops that have popped up over the last few years - but my budget doesn't like me doing this. I have tried going to the other end of the spectrum and buying "cheap" coffee in order to make my money go further, but I simply don't like it, and would rather go without, than drink something that tastes foul.

So, I have reached a compromise - that being, that I will drink "decent instant", and I will reduce my costs elsewhere in the budget to cover it.

My current coffee of choice (and it has been so for a couple of years now) is Kenco Really Rich (The blue one). However, it is not always available in shops, and so from time to time I revert to my previous preferred choice, which is Gold Blend.

This weekend has just seen me finish a jar of Gold Blend, hence this review, and although I have just bought a new jar of Really Rich, it was only because I had a money off coupon for it, rather than because it was so much better than Gold Blend.....there is not much to choose between these two, and they will have to fight me for my loyalty.

So, Gold Blend has been marketed as a "premium" coffee for many years, with a very high profile "will they/won't they" marketing campaign in the 1990s (it might even have gone back as far as the 80s, I'm not sure!). At that time, there was not much competition for "premium" coffee, so Gold Blend was the first choice if you wanted something a bit better than Nescafe or Maxwell House, which were the "standard" coffee granules.

However, in the last 10 years or so, we have become a nation of demanding coffee connoisseurs, with many coffee makers bringing out bigger ranges of "premium" coffees - whether you want Brazilian, Peruvian, Colombian, you can get a jar of Freeze Dried coffee granules for quite a reasonable price......yet I don't think I have seen Gold Blend up the ante as far as their advertising is concerned, so I am surprised that they have not fallen right down into obscurity!
So, anyway, onto the actual coffee - it is quite a rounded, reasonably strong tasting coffee. It is not bitter, and it is not wishy-washy. I have had some supermarket own version "Gold" standard coffees, and they do not compete in any way whatsoever with Gold Blend. I have also had some true "premium brand" coffee products that leave me feeling that I should have saved my money.

I like a good sized teaspoon of coffee, and so with some brands I am at risk of too much bitterness, whereas what I am after is a decent "hit" of coffee that makes me want to sit and enjoy the whole mug rather than just a "shot" of caffeine. Gold blend, with just a slight dash of milk, does this for me.

What's more, it smells good too - again, some coffees just smell cheap.....rather like a really poor coffee hut in a lay-by produces.....dishwater which requires tonnes of sugar just to make it palatable. With Gold Blend, I look forward to stabbing the foil lid on a new jar because I know that the smell is just going to be divine!

All in all, Gold Blend is a very close second to my current favourite, but having just revisited it for a whole week, my loyalty to Kenco is wavering somewhat, and it will very definitely be a case of which has the best offer in the supermarket for a while......

At £2.89 for a 100g jar, this gives a good number of decent sized, decent strength cups of coffee. Prices can vary hugely from store to store, though, so don't get caught out paying over the odds.

Summary: Gold Blend, I still love you.......