Why your instant coffee sucks

I think it's safe to say that instant coffee is the most popular type of coffee in existence. But there are still some people that don't know how to make instant coffee properly, and I know this because of all of the comments surrounding instant coffee. It's bitter, it tastes burnt, and it tastes terrible. If you make it correctly, it does not taste like any one of those three things. So I'm going to show you how to properly make instant coffee, and then once you know how to make it properly, you can make the three recipes that I'm going to show you and have The first complaint that I've got on instant coffee tasting bad is that it tastes weaker than regular coffee. And the main reason for that is that you're not using the proper cup. So in traditional measuring for cooking or baking, a cup is 8 fluid ounces. But in the coffee world, it's only 6. So make sure that you're using 6 fluid ounces instead of 8. Just by doing this alone, your coffee is going to taste better, and it's going to taste a little bit stronger than what it was before. Okay, so your coffee doesn't taste weak now, but it still tastes bitter or burnt. How do we fix it? It's actually very, very easy. All you got to do is before you put hot water on your instant coffee crystals, add a little bit of room temperature or cold water and dissolve those crystals. And then when you're done with that, add your hot water on top. This is going to prevent you from burning the coffee crystals by just pouring on a bunch of boiling water. If you're still finding after all of these tips and tricks that your coffee still tastes bitter or burnt or weak, it might just be time to switch to a different instant coffee. A few of my favorite instant coffees to use, and this isn't sponsored in any way by the way, is Juan Valdez and some sort of craft instant coffee that I can get from Blue Bottle. One of the best things about instant coffee is all of the possibilities and all of the drinks that you can make. You can make ice drinks, hot drinks, whipped coffee, frappuccinos. It's really endless. And I'm going to show you three different ways that you can use it to level up your game. The first drink is called an Indian cappuccino. It only requires three ingredients. One of them being instant coffee, sugar, and some milk. Into a cup, we're going to add one teaspoon of instant coffee, a teaspoon of sugar, and then in a separate glass, we're going to add about six ounces of milk. Throw that in the microwave and heat it up for about a minute. I like to do it on 50% power. That way it doesn't burn the top of the milk and still heats everything in the middle. Once it's completed and out of the microwave, we'll throw one ounce of our heated milk mixture in with the sugar and the instant coffee and mix it aggressively until it becomes a little foamy. Admittedly, this is going to require a bit of elbow grease, but if you don't want to put in the time and effort and you have one of these electric hand mixers, these things work just as well. Once you have a nice frothy layer on top, just pour in the remaining milk and you're all set. This is a sweeter drink that tastes like you're drinking coffee ice cream. The next drink is going to be made using a blender, and this is a way that you can make a blended coffee using any syrup that you'd like. I'll put the ingredients on the screen so you can screenshot it, but it's two teaspoons of instant coffee, a teaspoon of sugar, about three-fourths cup of ice, three-fourths cup of milk, and then any type of syrup that you'd like. In this case, I'm using butterscotch, and I'm going to just weigh it out with my heart. I don't really care at this point. An ingredient that I didn't put into mine but I wanted to mention to you guys is called xanthan gum. I would only use about an eighth teaspoon of this, but it's going to help keep the consistency of the blended coffee together as it melts. From there, just put the lid on, shake it up, and then put it on your blender and let it blend on high until everything is completely blended. Feel free to top it off with some whipped cream if you'd like or some caramel drizzle like I'm doing because caramel drizzle and butterscotch go together very well and you're all set. It's just like one of those blended coffees that you'd get from Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts. Now, the third recipe that we're going to be doing is using a shaking method, which is going to be very similar to those brown sugar shake and espressos that you'd get from Starbucks. This recipe is also pretty easy and simple on ingredients. You don't need too many things. We'll do two teaspoons of instant coffee, about two teaspoons of brown sugar, and then we'll add a little bit of water, about an ounce or so, just to mix everything together and to dissolve the instant coffee as best as we can. Once everything's dissolved as best as you can, I would add two more ounces of water and I would do hot water for this because this is going to help make the foam with the ice when we start shaking it. I like to use a little under a cup of ice and if it seems like a lot of ice, don't worry. Some of the ice is going to melt, so it's just about the perfect amount. Oh, and before I forget, I like to add a dash of cinnamon to mine too and even a pinch of salt. Not a lot. A little goes a long way with this. Then just put the top back on your cocktail shaker and shake it pretty aggressively. You want to shake it hard on this because this is what's going to create that foam. You know you're done shaking the drink when you stop hearing the ice hitting the sides of the cocktail shaker and when you're done, you just throw it into a separate glass and top it off with some milk, your choice of milk, oat milk or whole milk, and then some cinnamon if you want to and you're all set. So whether you're looking to make instant coffee that's hot or if you're looking to make one of my recipes that are a little bit sweeter, there are tons of good ways to make instant coffee actually taste really, really good. So I hope this video helped. Peace out. Love you guys. Bye.