Little's French Vanilla Infused Instant Coffee, 50g
Vanilla on a coffee label usually means sugar. Not here. The flavour is carried in the granule rather than poured over the cup, so what you get is a vanilla-scented black coffee that you can still take black, or with milk, or over ice, and decide the sweetness yourself. The base is kept at a medium roast with the bitterness pulled down, which is the right call: a dark, dry base would fight the custard note instead of carrying it. This is the second jar on the shelf, not the morning one, and it is the easiest flavoured coffee to put in front of somebody who has never drunk one.
Little's French Vanilla Infused Instant Coffee, in brief.
Little's French Vanilla is a soluble coffee with the vanilla infused into the granule rather than poured over the cup, a warm custard-style aromatic on a medium roast held deliberately low in bitterness, picked into the Teas.co.uk selection as the flavoured jar to buy first if you have never tried one.
A 50g jar, small on purpose: a flavoured coffee is rarely the only coffee in a kitchen, and an aromatic fades to air faster than a plain granule loses strength. At a rounded teaspoon per mug that is around 27 cups, worked out from the jar weight rather than a pack claim. Best black, or as a latte where milk carries the vanilla with no sugar added.
Little's French Vanilla is an instant coffee with the vanilla built into the granule rather than poured over the top of the cup, and that distinction is the entire argument for buying it. A syrup pump adds sugar, weight and a sticky sweetness along with the flavour. An infused instant adds aroma and very little else, so what lands in the mug is a vanilla-scented black coffee that you can then take with milk, or without, or over ice, exactly as you would treat any other jar in the cupboard.
The word French in the name describes a flavour style rather than a place. It is the custard-and-cream reading of vanilla, the one associated with a rich vanilla ice cream, rather than the thin sharp vanilla of a cheap essence. Nothing about the coffee is French and the brand does not suggest otherwise. The name is telling you which end of the vanilla spectrum the aroma sits at, and on that it delivers: the jar smells of warm custard the moment the lid comes off.
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 The Jar
Little's is a British family coffee company whose range is built almost entirely around infused flavours, which is unusual. Most coffee brands treat flavour as an add-on to a core line; here it is the core line, and the jars sit in a row of aromatics rather than a ladder of roast strengths. That focus shows. A company that makes a shelf of flavoured coffees has to get the base right, because a harsh base under a strong aromatic tastes like two arguments happening in one mug.
The base here is a soluble coffee held at a medium roast with the bitterness kept low, which is the correct decision. Vanilla is a sweet, rounded, low-acid aromatic, and it needs a low-acid, low-bitterness coffee underneath it or the two pull against each other. Roast it darker and the char fights the custard note; roast it much lighter and the acidity turns the vanilla thin and slightly soapy. The blend sits in the middle on purpose, and the result is a cup where the two halves read as one drink rather than as coffee with something added.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
Our Commitment To The Planet
- The jar that arrives is the current UK retail pack rather than a grey import carrying a different specification or a different flavour formulation.
- An instant jar leaves no capsule, no filter paper and no spent puck. Measured on waste per cup, it is the lightest way there is to drink a flavoured coffee at home.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Little's French Vanilla Infused Instant Coffee, 50g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Little's
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
A flavoured instant has one variable the plain jars do not: heat damages aromatics faster than it damages coffee. Everything below follows from that. Get the water temperature wrong and you do not just make the coffee bitter, you burn off the thing you bought it for.
The Standard Mug
The Vanilla Latte
Made with this tea
The Paste Method Mug
How to make The Paste Method Mug with Little's French Vanilla.
- 1 rounded teaspoon (about 1.8g) Little's French Vanilla
- 200ml water at about 90 degrees
- A splash of milk, optional
- Boil the kettle and let it stand for thirty seconds. On a flavoured coffee this step is the difference between smelling the vanilla and not.
- Spoon the coffee into a dry mug, add a splash of the hot water and stir to a smooth paste.
- Fill to 200ml and stir once more.
- Drink it black the first time. You may find you do not want milk in it at all.
What you'll end up with: An even cup with the vanilla intact and no bitterness from scalded granules.
Vanilla Latte Without The Syrup
How to make Vanilla Latte Without The Syrup with Little's French Vanilla.
- 2 rounded teaspoons Little's French Vanilla
- 1 tablespoon hot water
- 200ml milk of any kind
- A handheld milk whisk, optional
- Paste the coffee with the tablespoon of hot water in the bottom of the mug.
- Heat the milk until it steams but does not boil.
- Pour the milk onto the paste from a height so it folds through.
- Whisk the surface for ten seconds if you want a head on it.
What you'll end up with: The drink the jar exists for. Milk fat carries vanilla further than water does, so this reads stronger than the black cup with no sugar added to get it there.
Iced Vanilla Latte
How to make Iced Vanilla Latte with Little's French Vanilla.
- 2 rounded teaspoons Little's French Vanilla
- 30ml hot water
- 150ml cold milk
- A glass packed with ice
- Dissolve the coffee in the 30ml of hot water and stir until completely clear.
- Cool it for a minute so it does not melt the ice on contact.
- Pack the glass with ice, pour the cold milk over, then pour the coffee through the milk.
- Stir once, not twice. The layered pour is half the point.
What you'll end up with: The coffee-shop iced vanilla latte without the pump of syrup. Dissolving hot first is not optional; cold water never lifts the aromatic.
Whipped Vanilla Dalgona
How to make Whipped Vanilla Dalgona with Little's French Vanilla.
- 2 tablespoons Little's French Vanilla
- 2 tablespoons caster sugar
- 2 tablespoons very hot water
- 200ml cold milk over ice
- Combine the coffee, sugar and hot water in a bowl in equal measure.
- Whisk hard for three to five minutes, by hand or with an electric whisk, until it turns pale and holds soft peaks.
- Spoon the foam over a glass of cold milk and ice.
- Stir it down through the milk as you drink, or leave it and eat the top with a spoon.
What you'll end up with: A thick vanilla-coffee foam. Only a soluble coffee whips like this, and the infused vanilla means the sugar is doing structural work rather than flavouring work.
Two Minute Affogato
How to make Two Minute Affogato with Little's French Vanilla.
- 2 rounded teaspoons Little's French Vanilla
- 50ml hot water
- 2 scoops vanilla or plain ice cream
- Dissolve the coffee in 50ml of hot water to make a short, strong shot.
- Scoop the ice cream into a cold bowl or a small glass.
- Pour the hot coffee straight over it at the table.
- Eat immediately, while half of it is still frozen and half is melting.
What you'll end up with: A pudding in two minutes. The vanilla in the coffee doubles the vanilla in the ice cream instead of arguing with it, which is why this jar suits an affogato better than a plain instant.
Coffee And Vanilla Buttercream
How to make Coffee And Vanilla Buttercream with Little's French Vanilla.
- 2 teaspoons Little's French Vanilla
- 2 teaspoons boiling water
- 100g soft butter and 200g icing sugar
- A cooled sponge to fill
- Dissolve the coffee in the boiling water to make a thick essence and let it cool completely.
- Beat the butter and icing sugar until pale and light.
- Add the cooled essence a teaspoon at a time so the buttercream does not split.
- Fill the sponge and leave it half an hour before cutting.
What you'll end up with: A coffee buttercream that tastes of coffee rather than of brown. A soluble coffee beats brewed here because it adds no extra liquid, and this one supplies the vanilla extract at the same time.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Typical values per 100ml, as published | Per 100ml |
|---|---|
| Energy | 4 kcal |
| Fat | trace |
| of which saturates | trace |
| Carbohydrate | 0.7g |
| of which sugars | 0.1g |
| Protein | 0.2g |
| Salt | trace |
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: Freeze-Dried Coffee, French Vanilla Flavouring.
Ingredient and nutrition information for this product, as published on the manufacturer's label. The pack in your hands is the final word.
| Ingredient | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Soluble coffee | the bulk of the jar | The base. Held at a medium roast with the bitterness kept low, because a harsh base and a sweet aromatic pull against each other in the cup. |
| Measure per mug | ~1.8g | One rounded teaspoon per 200ml, which is roughly 27 mugs from the 50g jar, worked out from the jar weight. |
Pack: Little's French Vanilla Infused Instant Coffee, 50g; flavour-infused soluble coffee in a jar. Best before the date printed on the pack, and best within a couple of months of opening while the aromatic is still lively.
The current UK pack carries the full ingredient, nutrition and allergen statement and is the version to trust at the point of purchase.
Sourcing & blend. Little's French Vanilla Infused Instant Coffee, 50g is made by Little's, a British family coffee company whose range is built almost entirely on infused flavours rather than on a ladder of roast strengths. That focus is the reason to take the base coffee seriously here: a company selling a shelf of aromatics cannot afford a bitter base under any of them. The coffee is a blend rather than a single origin and the split is not published on the jar, so we leave it at that. The jar you receive is the current UK retail pack rather than an import on a different flavour formulation.
What is in Little's French Vanilla Infused Instant Coffee, 50g, and what is not:
- In: soluble coffee carrying a natural French vanilla flavouring, infused into the granule rather than poured over the finished cup.
- No syrup and no thickener: this is a dry jar, not a sweetened mix. Whatever sugar content the formulation carries, if any, is on the ingredients panel of the current UK pack.
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 Little's French Vanilla Infused Instant Coffee, 50g, please cite teas.co.uk.
What buyers say
No customer reviews of Little's French Vanilla Infused Instant Coffee, 50g 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 Little's
Other Coffee worth comparing
