Kenco Smooth Instant Coffee Paper Refill, 150g
The only part of owning this that can go wrong is the pour. A paper refill is made to be tipped into something, so the transfer is the whole event: a torn corner, a jar a shade too wide, and a fair amount of it is on the worktop rather than in the jar. Do it slowly, over the sink, into something you have already dried. Nobody buys a refill while they are still making up their mind, either. It is what you buy once the argument is settled and the only question left is how to get more of the same coffee into the house without acquiring another jar, which is a sensible thing to want and not a very exciting one. The coffee itself is medium roasted and deliberately low in bitterness. No jar comes in the box, so one has to be in the cupboard already, and what is inside is soluble coffee and nothing else: no milk powder, no sugar.
Kenco Smooth Instant Coffee Paper Refill, in brief.
Kenco Smooth Instant Coffee Paper Refill is the everyday Kenco Smooth soluble coffee in a 150g refill pack rather than in glass, medium roasted and deliberately low in bitterness, picked into the Teas.co.uk selection for households that already own the jar and only want the coffee.
Decant the whole pack into a dry jar the day it arrives; a refill only beats a jar if you actually transfer it.
Kenco Smooth Instant Coffee Paper Refill is the same everyday soluble coffee as the Kenco Smooth jar, sold in a 150g refill pack rather than in glass. The idea is simple: you already own a jar, so buy the coffee and not another container. Tip it in, screw the lid back on and put the empty pack out with the rest of the week's packaging.
At a rounded teaspoon per mug, roughly 2g, the 150g pack gives around 75 mugs. Whether it is 75 mugs in your house depends entirely on how heavy your teaspoon is.
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 Kenco
Kenco has been a British coffee name since 1923, and Smooth is the jar that made it a household one. It sits at the low-bitterness end of the supermarket instant shelf on purpose. Where a dark, intense jar is built to read through a lot of milk, a smooth jar is built to be drinkable in any mug with anything in it, which is a different and less fashionable kind of achievement.
The refill pack is a more recent idea, and it belongs to a wider move away from glass across the instant coffee aisle. Glass is heavy to move and easy to recycle; a lightweight pack is cheap to move and much harder to sort. Neither is straightforwardly the greener option, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
The bean composition, the roast description, the certification marks, the net weight and the disposal instructions are printed on the pack you receive. Soluble blends are reformulated from time to time, so the pack in your hand is the authority rather than a listing written earlier.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance. A paper-based pack is not automatically kerbside recyclable, because it may carry a barrier liner; the instruction printed on the pack is the one that counts.
The One Real Catch With Any Refill
Instant coffee is hygroscopic, which is a long word for a simple habit: it pulls water out of the air. That is why a jar clumps into a solid block if the lid has been left loose over a damp winter, and why a wet teaspoon is the fastest way to ruin one. A glass jar with a screw lid and a foil seal is very good at keeping air out. A refill pack, once opened, is much less good at it.
So the refill only beats a jar if you actually decant it. Open the pack, tip the whole thing into a clean dry jar, and close it. What does not work is opening the pack, using a few spoonfuls from it directly, rolling the top over and leaving it in the cupboard for a fortnight. Coffee treated that way goes flat and clumpy long before the best before date, and the refill has then cost you both money and a decent cup.
Two smaller points follow from the same physics. Use a dry spoon every time, and never one that has been in a hot mug. And decant into a jar that is the right size, because a half-empty jar holds a lot of air and air is the other thing that dulls coffee.
Getting The Most Out Of This Pack
- Decant it: straight into a clean dry jar, all of it, the day it arrives. That is the whole point of the format.
- Water temperature: 90 to 95°C. Rest the kettle rather than pouring it boiling.
- Spoon: dry every time. A wet spoon is what turns a jar into a brick.
- Best with: toast, a mid-morning biscuit, a Victoria sponge, or a long afternoon at a desk.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Kenco Smooth Instant Coffee Paper Refill, 150g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Kenco
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; a paper-based pack is not automatically kerbside recyclable, so read the instruction printed on it.
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
The commonest mistake with any instant coffee is pouring water straight off a rolling boil onto the granules. Soluble coffee has been fully extracted once and then dried, so it needs no boiling water to release anything, and water at 100 degrees scorches whatever aromatics survived the drying. Let the kettle stand for thirty to sixty seconds. On a smooth, low-bitterness coffee this matters more than you would think, because there is nothing heavy in the cup to hide a scorched note behind.
The Everyday Mug
Black, Iced And Sweet
Made with this tea
The Decant, Done Properly
Not a drink, but the five minutes that decide whether the rest of the pack is any good.
- The 150g refill pack
- A clean jar of roughly the right size
- A completely dry cloth
- Dry the jar thoroughly, inside and around the rim.
- Tip the whole pack in at once rather than a spoonful at a time.
- Close the lid firmly and keep the jar in a cupboard.
What you'll end up with: Coffee that still tastes like coffee in six weeks, instead of a clumped pack that has been quietly absorbing the kitchen.
The Everyday Mug
The cup this coffee is built for, made in the order that actually works.
- 1 rounded teaspoon Kenco Smooth
- 200ml water at 90 to 95 degrees
- A splash of milk
- Rest the kettle for thirty to sixty seconds after it boils.
- Paste the granules with a splash of the water, then fill.
- Add the milk last, and keep it to a splash.
What you'll end up with: A rounded, low-bitterness mug with no grit at the bottom and no scorched note on top.
Iced Coffee Without The Grit
Granules will not dissolve in cold water. Dissolve first, chill second.
- 2 teaspoons Kenco Smooth
- 80ml hot water
- A tall glass of ice
- 150ml cold milk
- Dissolve the granules completely in the hot water.
- Cool for five minutes before it goes near ice.
- Pour over fresh ice and top with cold milk.
What you'll end up with: A clean iced coffee with nothing gritty at the bottom, and a mildness that suits cold drinks better than a dark roast does.
The Flask Mug
Coffee that has to survive an hour in a flask needs building differently from coffee drunk now.
- 3 teaspoons for a 500ml flask
- Water at 90 to 95 degrees
- A flask rinsed with hot water
- Warm the flask with hot water and tip it out.
- Make it slightly stronger than you would drink it now.
- Leave the milk out and carry it separately.
What you'll end up with: A flask that still tastes of coffee at eleven o'clock, rather than the flat milky thing an hour usually produces.
Coffee Loaf Cake
A mild instant is better in baking than a dark one, because the sugar has nothing to fight.
- 2 tablespoons Kenco Smooth
- 2 tablespoons hot water
- Your usual loaf cake batter
- Walnuts, optional
- Dissolve the coffee in the hot water and let it cool.
- Beat it into the batter at the end, not the start.
- Bake as usual and check ten minutes early.
What you'll end up with: A coffee cake that tastes of coffee rather than of burnt sugar, which is where a dark instant usually takes it.
Coffee For A Room Full Of People
The one thing a jar does that a machine cannot: eight mugs at once, all the same.
- 8 rounded teaspoons
- A warmed 1.6 litre jug
- Milk and sugar on a tray
- Paste all eight spoonfuls in the jug with a little hot water.
- Fill with rested water and stir thoroughly.
- Pour at the table, with milk and sugar left to each person.
What you'll end up with: Eight identical mugs poured at the same temperature, which is exactly where a low-bitterness coffee earns its keep.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Ingredient | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Soluble coffee | 150g, the whole of the pack | Everything you taste. Coffee brewed at the factory and then dried, so the granules are a concentrate you rehydrate in the mug rather than something coffee-flavoured. |
| Bean composition and origins | Printed on the current pack | Kenco states the blend and its description on the pack. We have not restated a ratio or an origin we cannot read off the label in your hand. |
| Roast level | Medium, per the brand's own positioning | Smooth is the low-bitterness end of the Kenco range. It is built to be drinkable black or with a splash rather than to fight through a mug that is half milk. |
| Water (added by you) | The bulk of the finished cup | Around 2g of granules to a 200ml mug, at 90 to 95 degrees rather than straight off the boil. A low-bitterness coffee has nothing heavy to hide a scorched note behind. |
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: Instant Coffee (90%), Roast and Ground Coffee (10%).
Ingredient and nutrition information for this product, as published on the manufacturer's label. The pack in your hands is the final word.
Pack: Caffeinated. Best before date printed on the pack.
Percentages are not published for this blend and we have not invented any. Black instant coffee carries almost no calories; anything added at the mug, milk or sugar, changes that entirely, and the nutrition panel on the pack is the figure to work from.
Sourcing & blend. Kenco Smooth Instant Coffee Paper Refill is the everyday Kenco Smooth soluble coffee sold without the glass. Kenco has been a British coffee name since 1923 and Smooth is the jar that made it a household one, sitting at the low-bitterness end of the supermarket instant shelf deliberately rather than by accident. Where a dark, intense jar is built to read through a lot of milk, a smooth jar is built to be drinkable in any mug with anything in it, which is a quieter kind of achievement and a harder one to photograph. The refill format belongs to a wider move away from glass across the instant aisle, and it is worth being honest about that too: glass is heavy to move and easy to recycle, while a lightweight pack is cheap to move and harder to sort, so neither is straightforwardly the greener choice. What a refill definitely does is remove a container you already own from the shopping, provided you decant it promptly, because soluble coffee is hygroscopic and a rolled-over pack is a poor seal. For the bean composition, the certification marks, the pack material and the disposal route carried by the pack in your hand, read the current label.
What is in Kenco Smooth Instant Coffee Paper Refill, and what is not:
- In: soluble coffee, and nothing else.
- No sugar, sweetener or milk powder: this is a plain coffee pack, not a latte or cappuccino sachet.
- No dairy in the pack: made black it is a plant based drink; milk is something you add.
- Storage note: decant the whole pack into a clean dry jar on the day it arrives, and use a dry spoon every time.
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Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Kenco Smooth Instant Coffee Paper Refill, 150g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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