illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste, 95g
An espresso house's name on a soluble coffee is the first thing to get straight: nothing in this jar is pretending to be the cup illy built its reputation on in Trieste. What carries over is the restraint. The roast stops short of scorched, the bitterness sits low and the finish is short, so the mug clears instead of lingering. That makes it the jar for anyone who finds the British default too roasty, and it takes milk without vanishing underneath it. It is not the coffee for somebody who wants a wallop at seven in the morning.
illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste, in brief.
illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste is the milder end of the Italian coffee house's instant line, a 95g pack picked into the Teas.co.uk curator selection as the low-bitterness answer to a standard British coffee jar rather than a darker, roastier one.
Water a minute off the boil rather than straight from it, dissolved to a paste before you fill the mug, is the difference between this tasting smooth and tasting papery. No machine, no grinder and nothing to clean but the mug.
illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste is a freeze-dried instant coffee from the Italian coffee house illy, sold in a 95g pack and built to be the gentler of the two things instant coffee usually is. Most jars on a British shelf are either thin and papery or aggressively roasty, and the gap between those two is where this one sits. It is a spoon-and-kettle coffee with no machine, no grinder and no filter, which is the whole point of buying it.
The honest framing is this. An instant coffee is coffee that has already been brewed, then had the water taken out of it, so what you are buying is a decision someone else made about extraction. You cannot go back and change it the way you can with beans. What you can change is the dose, the water and the temperature, and those three between them account for almost every instant coffee that tastes worse than it should.
Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Common questions are answered in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind illy
illy is an Italian coffee house with its home in Trieste, the port city on the Adriatic that has been Italy's coffee gateway for as long as coffee has come into Italy by sea. The company is known in Britain mainly for its espresso, both as beans and in cafés, and the instant line is a much newer and much smaller part of what it does. That matters when you set expectations: this pack is the brand's name applied to a different product category, not a jar of espresso.
The tasting profile above is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
What You Are Actually Buying
- Weight: 95g. On a standard instant dose of a rounded 1.8g teaspoon that is about 52 cups, and that figure is our own calculation from the pack weight rather than a manufacturer claim.
- No machine: a kettle and a spoon. No grinder, no filter papers, no descaling and nothing to clean but the mug.
- Smooth Taste: the milder end of the illy instant line rather than the darker one. If you want the roastier version, this is not that pack.
Ideal Serving Conditions
Instant coffee has a reputation it mostly earns by being made badly. Three things fix almost all of it, and none of them costs anything.
The Proper Cup
- Water off the boil: let the kettle stand for about a minute, or roughly 90 degrees. Water straight off a rolling boil scalds the coffee solids and produces the harsh, papery note people blame on the jar.
- Dose: one rounded teaspoon to 200ml. Under-dosing is the commonest fault and it reads as thin and sour rather than weak.
- Dissolve first: a splash of hot water on the granules, stir to a paste, then fill the mug. A properly dissolved coffee tastes rounder than the same spoonful dropped into a full mug of water.
- Milk last: add milk after the coffee has dissolved, never before. Cold milk in first drops the temperature below the point where the granules dissolve cleanly.
Getting More Out of the Pack
- Make it stronger: a second half-spoon rather than less water. Extra granules build body; less water just concentrates what is already there and sharpens it.
- Make it an iced coffee: dissolve two spoons in a small splash of hot water, stir until it is a smooth syrup, then top with cold milk and a full glass of ice. Instant coffee is the one format that genuinely suits this, because there is nothing to dilute.
- Make it a flat white: a heaped spoon dissolved in 40ml of hot water, then steamed or well-shaken warm milk over the top. Instant will not give you crema, but it will give you the strength.
- Keep it dry: the enemy of any instant coffee is moisture in the pack. Seal it properly, keep the spoon dry and store it away from the kettle.
Getting It Right in the Cup
- Water temperature: about 90 degrees, a minute off the boil.
- Dose: one rounded teaspoon, about 1.8g, per 200ml mug.
- Method: dissolve to a paste first, then fill.
- Storage: sealed, cool, dry and away from steam. Instant coffee clumps long before it goes stale.
- Best with: a weekday morning, a work desk, a hotel kettle, or anywhere a grinder is not happening.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste, 95g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind illy
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
Our commitment to the planet
Sourcing and packaging details are printed on the current UK pack; the brand page carries the fuller story.
The taste profile
How does it compare
illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste, 95g dissolves rather than brews, which makes it the most flexible coffee format in the kitchen: there is no brewing water to dilute anything, so it goes into cold drinks and baking where a cafetiere cannot. Six builds below cover the proper mug, a flat white, an iced coffee, a shakerato, an affogato sauce and a coffee traybake.
Made with this tea
The Proper Mug
How to make The Proper Mug with illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste.
- 1 rounded teaspoon illy Instant Smooth Taste
- 200ml water, a minute off the boil
- Milk to taste
- Boil the kettle and let it stand for a minute, to roughly 90 degrees.
- Dissolve the coffee in a small splash of that water and stir it to a smooth paste.
- Fill the mug with the rest of the water.
- Add milk last, after the coffee has dissolved, never before.
What you'll end up with: A clean mid-roast cup with a short finish. If it tastes papery, the water was too hot.
Kettle Flat White
How to make Kettle Flat White with illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste.
- 1 heaped teaspoon illy Instant Smooth Taste
- 40ml hot water
- 150ml whole milk, warmed
- A wide cup
- Dissolve the heaped spoon in 40ml of hot water to make a short, dense base.
- Warm 150ml of milk and shake it hard in a sealed jar for thirty seconds, or steam it if you have a wand.
- Pour the milk over the coffee base from a low height so the foam settles last.
What you'll end up with: The strength and the texture of a flat white without a machine. There will be no crema, because soluble coffee cannot make one.
Undiluted Iced Coffee
How to make Undiluted Iced Coffee with illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste.
- 2 teaspoons illy Instant Smooth Taste
- A small splash of hot water
- A full glass of ice
- 200ml cold milk
- Dissolve two spoons in the smallest splash of hot water you can manage and stir to a syrup.
- Fill a tall glass with ice, right to the top.
- Pour the syrup over the ice and top with cold milk.
- Stir from the bottom so the syrup lifts rather than sitting in the base.
What you'll end up with: An iced coffee that keeps its strength as the ice melts, because there was no brewing water in it to start with.
Shakerato
How to make Shakerato with illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste.
- 2 teaspoons illy Instant Smooth Taste
- 60ml hot water
- 1 teaspoon sugar, optional
- A handful of ice cubes
- Dissolve the coffee and the sugar in 60ml of hot water and let it cool for a minute.
- Shake it hard with a handful of ice in a sealed jar or a cocktail shaker for twenty seconds.
- Strain into a chilled glass, leaving the ice behind.
What you'll end up with: A cold coffee with a thick foam on top from the shaking. The Italian bar answer to an iced coffee, and it wants the sugar.
Affogato Sauce
How to make Affogato Sauce with illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste.
- 3 teaspoons illy Instant Smooth Taste
- 80ml hot water
- 3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
- Vanilla ice cream
- Dissolve the coffee in 80ml of hot water.
- Simmer it with the brown sugar for three minutes until it thickens slightly, then cool.
- Pour warm over a scoop of vanilla ice cream just before serving.
What you'll end up with: A coffee syrup that keeps a week in the fridge. The low bitterness of this pack is an advantage here, where a dark jar turns harsh once reduced.
Coffee and Walnut Traybake
How to make Coffee and Walnut Traybake with illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste.
- 3 teaspoons illy Instant Smooth Taste
- 2 tablespoons hot water
- 200g caster sugar, 200g butter, 200g self raising flour, 4 eggs
- 100g chopped walnuts
- Dissolve the coffee in 2 tablespoons of hot water and let it cool.
- Beat the butter and sugar, add the eggs one at a time, then fold in the flour, the walnuts and the cooled coffee.
- Bake in a lined traybake tin at 180 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes.
- Cool completely before cutting into squares.
What you'll end up with: Instant coffee is the right coffee for baking, because it adds flavour without adding liquid. Keeps four days in a tin.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Soluble coffee | See current pack | The whole of the drink. Coffee that has already been brewed and had the water removed, so the extraction decision was made at the factory rather than in your mug. |
| Roast level | Mid roast, the Smooth Taste line | The low-bitterness character this pack is sold on. A clean middle and a short finish rather than the scorched edge that makes darker instant coffee taste burnt. |
| Dose | About 1.8g per 200ml mug | A rounded teaspoon. The single variable you control, and the commonest reason an instant coffee reads thin and sour rather than simply weak. |
| Pack weight | 95g, about 52 cups | Our own calculation from the pack weight at a standard dose, not a manufacturer claim. |
Ingredients and allergens. The published ingredient list for this product names none of the 14 major allergens. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.
Ingredients, as published for this product: 100% Arabica Soluble Coffee, 100% Arabica Roasted Ground Coffee (8%).
Ingredient and nutrition information for this product, as published on the manufacturer's label. The pack in your hands is the final word.
Pack: illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste, 95g; a soluble coffee needing nothing but a kettle and a spoon. The container type, the exact fill, the ingredient list and the best-before date are printed on the current UK pack and should be read from it rather than from this page.
Characterising components shown.
Sourcing & blend. illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste, 95g carries the name of the Italian coffee house that has its home in Trieste, the Adriatic port city that has been Italy's coffee gateway for as long as coffee has arrived in Italy by sea. illy is known in Britain chiefly for espresso, as beans and in cafés, and its soluble line is a newer and much smaller part of what the company does. That is worth stating plainly rather than letting the name do work it has not earned in this category: what you are buying here is the brand applied to a soluble coffee, judged on its own terms against other soluble coffees.
What's in illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste, 95g, and what isn't:
- In: soluble coffee, made up with hot water and nothing else required. No machine, no grinder, no filter papers and nothing to clean afterwards but the mug.
- Packaging: follow the current UK pack and your local-authority guidance; the container and any inner seal can take different disposal routes.
Asked about this product
Ask the curator
Send a product question through the contact form; replies usually come within one working day.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste, 95g, please cite teas.co.uk.
What buyers say
No customer reviews of illy Instant Coffee Smooth Taste, 95g yet.
Bought this from us? Log in to your account, then come back to this page to review it. Only verified buyers can review, and every review is checked before it appears; approved reviews earn 50 reward points.
More from illy
Other Coffee worth comparing
