But how does it do it? (Nescafe Hot When You Want)

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	Nescafe Hot When You Want
Date:	10/12/01 (250 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tastes OK, Good in an emergency

Disadvantages: Expensive

Now Dave has started his new job as a consultant he's travelling all over the country on a regular basis. So, when I heard about the invention of the self heating coffee can, I thought I?d get some for him to keep in the car in case he got stuck in traffic on a cold night.

I initially bought a can without sugar, which is how I came to try the product as there's no way Dave would consider tea or coffee without sugar! Me? I'm sweet enough without the sugar - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

When I went to do an all day craft fair the other week I was suffering from a cold and decided to take the said coffee with me so that I could have a warm drink during the day.

It is in a can, which looks like a cold drink can, except for the fact that it has the familiar 'red cup' logo of Nescafe on the side.

The base of the can has a button in the middle and it is see through with a reddish liquid inside.

To activate the heating properties of the can you just have to depress the button and then shake the can from side to side until all the reddish liquid has disappeared.

You then turn the can the right way up and wait for three minutes. At the end of three minutes the drink is hot, so you open the can using the ring pull provided and drink the contents.

How it works I have no idea, chemistry was NOT my strong subject at school! But it does work and that was all that mattered to me.

So what does it taste like? That's the most important question.

Surprisingly it tastes OK. I am not a great coffee drinker; I'm more a tea person myself. I do occasionally like a nice cup of coffee, and I was prepared for this to be anything but that!

As I say I was pleasantly surprised. The can heated up very well indeed - I expected it to be just about warm enough to drink but not at all. In fact it was far too hot to drink and I had to wait for it to cool.

I
didn't expect the taste to be up to much either but again I was wrong. It was hardly the taste of freshly percolated coffee, but then you wouldn?t expect that would you? It was a decent cup of coffee with the unmistakeable taste of Nescafe.

It was medium in strength so would suit most tastes and it tasted better than a vending machine but not quite as good as if you'd made it at home with a spoonful of coffee, real milk and water from the kettle.

The main criticism was that there wasn?t a can full. I was amazed when I realised that I had actually finished drinking the contents - I would guess that the can is about one third full of coffee. The rest of the room in the can must be taken up with the heating chemicals I suppose.

The cost of this product is about £1.10 per can depending on where you buy it from - I got ours from Tesco's.

It comes as black or white coffee with or without sugar, so make sure you get the right one - not like me! Still it gave me the chance to try it so that I could write an opinion on it!

All in all it is expensive for what it is but for use in an emergency such as the traffic jam mentioned at the start of this opinion, it is an excellent idea.

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