Korean Job Discussion Forums

[flummuxt]

Look, I used to grind my own coffee beans, heck, I used to roast them, sometimes. But here, not living in the Seoulcentric center of the universe, I've given up.

I don't want to buy those coffee tubes, no matter how many free tote bags, coffee cups, or advertising labeled carafes they throw in because I don't like tons of sugar and hydrogenated coffee creemer with my coffee. And besides, they supply it free at my PS, courtesy of the teacher's union(?!?!).

Last time I bought some regular instant coffee in a big bag. It said 100 percent something on it, so I figured it was OK, and it was. But I threw out the bag. I think it was Nescafe.

This time I got some Maxim Arabica 100. It also says 100 Percent and New on the bag, so I figured it must be good. It wasn't. Maybe I did something wrong?

Do you folks have any Korean instant coffee recommendations?

[JongnoGuru]

http://www.seescoffee.com/index.php

[Dev]

Buy yourself a french press at a place that sells cookware and then go to Home Plus and buy some ground whole bean coffee.

There is no such thing as "good" instant coffee.

[ddeubel]

Dev,

I used to think like you (and for the most part agree). But Carte Noire is beyond doubt the best stuff in the world (though you can get some good stuff at Migros in Switzerland. French coffee made with a very specialized and natural freeze dried process. Keeps all the natural flavour, excellent beans used....

This is the instant drug of choice! Maybe you can get some in Bangbae dong french village? I stuff bags upon bags in my suitcase each trip to Europe.




DD

[SuperHero]

i'd rather drink McCol (barley cola) than instant coffee - that stuff is shite.

[atomic42]

[princess]

[Sash]

Taster's Choice is okay. Buy the big bag, pour some in a plastic round container with a scoop (about 1000 won), and keep it in your desk (unless you want to be kind and share).

PS- if you don't like creamer, you can buy some dry instant milk, or use fresh milk.

[flummuxt]

This is quite remarkable.

I do believe that not a single one of you read the original post. Except perhaps JongnoGuru; I can't quite tell what he is recommending from the pictures.

Sash came closest. I will keep Taster's Choice in mind. But as I stated, I get all the instant coffee at work I can drink, supplied by the teacher's union. And if you do work at a public school, sharing is highly advised.

I tried the Maxim Arabica 100 again today and made an interesting discovery. This freeze dried stuff is at least twice as strong as the old style powdered instant Nescafe stuff I was using. That may explain why my first cup tasted so bitter. And given that the freeze dried coffee takes up more space per gram on the measuring spoon, it's thrice the price may not be so bad. It tasted fairly good today.

Part of the problem with instant is with the big bags you tend to get here, the taste diminished with age, even stored in a tight glass container. So the tubes have an advantage there.

I avoided instant like the plague back home. But now I am reconsidering. It's actually not so bad. At an out of the way restaurant before I shipped out for Korea I had some astonishingly good coffee; they were making it in a Bunn commercial brewer, but it turned out it was from syrup. The same stuff showed up at a fine restaurant. And by then I was getting a little tired of the same flavor, no matter how good it was.

That's the biggest problem with instant; it pretty much always tastes the same, day after day. You can vary the strength a bit, the type of sugar or sweetener, the amount of milk or cream, perhaps a dash of cinnamon. But you don't get the enormous variation in flavor of coffee beans that you can when you brew the real thing.

The instant is so much cheaper here than beans, and even than tea, that I am sticking with instant.

BTW, I have never seen a Home Plus. I do not live near Seoul. I have owned French presses, and have never liked the result. As I said, I prefer a pump espresso maker. However, you may be interested to know that coffee buyers use a French presse to evaluate a crop of beans before purchasing. They do the best to give you the straight flavor of the beans, both good and bad.

[hagwonnewbie]

Korea has the best instant coffee in the world. I saw some thing about it on American TV. It was impresive.

I usually buy Maxim. They have a variety with no added cream or sugar. I usually sweeten with honey or brown sugar and add a little whole milk or Bailey's.

I don't care much for the coffee press I own, but I use it sometimes. It is good if you have good coarsely ground coffee. I brought some Seattle's Best Breakfast Blend when I got here months ago.

[flummuxt]

hagwonnewbie writ:

[OiGirl]

[OiGirl]

Does anyone know how much caffeine is in each stick of Maxim Gold Mix?

[Hyeon Een]

I think that the U.K has the best instant coffee in the world. The reason for this being that we AREN'T (or at least weren't) a nation of gourmet coffee drinkers. As such we are unwilling to buy coffee makers, buy and grind beans, buy filters etc. to make ourselves a cup of coffee at home. We buy instant. And it is, often, very good instant. Far superior to that available in the US or other coffee loving nations. The reason being that Americans are willing to buy the actual beans or the ground beans and make 'real' coffee fro m them. Manufacturers don't sell the best instant stuff because it would steal from the more lucrative 'real coffee' market.

So I totally sympathaize with N.American posters who declare all instant coffee to be undrinkable; it's true in their home countries which love coffee and thus a reasonable assumption to make when abroad. Other markets DO have good instant coffee though.

I think these coffee snobs are pretty correct in Korea though. The instant coffees (even outside of the pre-mix sticks) are pretty average at best. But they are certainly not as 'undrinkable' as some snobs claim. There are good freeze dried coffees out there, and some are a damn site better than the super expensive 'hazlenut' and other flavored 'real' coffees you get here in Korea.

[blurgalurgalurga]

The propylene glycol coffee whitener they put into the mix packets is pure evil and gives me the Hershey scoots for days. So, for a while I was footling about trying to find an instant coffee that didn't taste like burnt dog ass, to which I could add milk and brown sugar; basically, though, they all sucked. It was more a question of what kind of burnt dog-ass they tasted like. The yellow bag of Maxim was a bit like a scorched yellow labrador...stupid, friendly, not without its charms--you'd trust it with your kid, you know, but it's essentially inbred and in the long term, unpalatable. Taster's Choice was fetid, gnarled, with hints of rotten fruit and a nose not unlike that of a Michael Vick pitbull: tortured, bitter, and apt to treat you as cruelly as it had, itself, been treated.

So, I bought a twenty dollar drip coffee maker, and now I go through about a half pound a week of decent starbucks coffee at about the same price I'd get it for back home. When feeling rich, I buy Illy for about 25 bucks a can, or Lavazza for fifteen. It ain't the best but it still makes me go 'aaaaaaaaah' with pure pleasure when I drink it in the mornings. The best I ever got from an instant mass-production model was a 'hmmmm, that doesn't taste like pure garmonbozia.'*

Seriously though, green tea has more caffeine, so if it's that or the packeted freezedry vomit, it's nok-cha all the way for me.


*


garmonbozia: extracted and collected from the fear and suffering of people. The substance, similiar to cream corn, is used as food by Mike, Bob and the Little Man.


http://www.glastonberrygrove.net/mythos/eh.html