Nescafe Gold Blend Instant Coffee, 95g
Most complaints about instant coffee are really complaints about how it was made. Boiling water straight onto the granules scalds them and the mug turns bitter before anyone has tasted it. Give the kettle half a minute, put the coffee into a dry mug, stir a splash of hot water into a paste, then fill. The same jar comes out noticeably rounder, and Gold Blend has more to lose from the bad method than a cheap granule does, because aroma is exactly what it is selling and aroma is the first thing scalding takes. Treated properly this is the mug that gets offered to visitors: low in bitterness, soft as it cools, and forgiving enough that a heavy spoon makes it stronger rather than harsh. It holds its shape under milk without turning into a milk drink. What it will not do is stand in for a cafetiere, and Nescafe has never suggested otherwise. Judged as the best cup a kettle and a spoon can produce, it is still the one to beat.
Nescafe Gold Blend Instant Coffee, in brief.
Nescafe Gold Blend is the freeze-dried jar in Nescafe's premium instant tier, amber granules that dissolve into a rounder, less bitter mug than a spray-dried powder, picked into the teas.co.uk selection as the instant to keep for the cup you would hand to a visitor.
A 95g jar, the small size in the line, which suits a one or two cup a day household and stays fresher than a big jar opened for months. At a rounded teaspoon per mug that is around 52 cups, by our own reckoning rather than a pack claim. Smooth, low in bitterness, and forgiving if you are heavy handed with the spoon.
Nescafe Gold Blend is the freeze-dried jar that most British kitchens keep for the cup they would actually offer a visitor. The granule is the point of difference. Freeze drying takes the brewed extract down to a frozen slab, breaks it into open, glassy pieces and pulls the water off under vacuum rather than blowing it out with heat, and the result dissolves into a rounder, sweeter, noticeably less bitter mug than the spray-dried powders that sit beside it on the shelf.
At 95g this is the small jar. It is the size that makes sense for a one- or two-cup-a-day household, for a desk drawer, or for a second jar kept for guests while a bigger one does the daily work. A smaller jar is also a fresher jar, because the enemy of soluble coffee is the air that gets in every time the lid comes off, and a 95g jar is finished long before that becomes a problem.
Curator notes: the four scores above are our own, worked out on the 95g jar and checked against Nescafé's description. Dispatching the small jar is usually a matter of 1 to 2 working days. Questions below cover jar size, water heat, the paste trick and icing it.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind The Jar
Nescafe has been making soluble coffee since 1938, and Gold Blend is the line the brand uses to answer the oldest complaint about instant: that it tastes thin and reads bitter as it cools. The fix is the drying method. Spray drying is fast and cheap and puts the extract through a hot tower; freeze drying is slower, costs more and keeps more of the aromatic compounds intact, which is why the granules in this jar are irregular amber chips rather than a uniform brown powder.
What you get from that is a cup with a rounder middle and a shorter, cleaner finish. It is not a substitute for a cafetiere and the brand has never pretended otherwise. What it is, really, is the most reliable cup available from a kettle and a spoon, and the jar that gets reached for when somebody in the house says they do not really like instant coffee.
Packaging: Lid and jar can be sorted differently, so read the label and your council's rules first.
Our Commitment To The Planet
- We ship the 95g jar as stocked by UK retailers, never a grey import on some other specification.
- An instant jar has no capsule, no filter paper and no spent puck. Of all the ways to make a hot black coffee at home, this one leaves the least behind.
Source: teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Nescafe Gold Blend Instant Coffee, 95g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Nescafé
Nescafé invented mass-market instant coffee in 1938 and has been refining it ever since. The Azera range brings cafe-quality micro-ground instant coffee; Gold Blend is the premium freeze-dried; the Original is the everyday standard.
Packaging: Lid and jar can be sorted differently, so read the label and your council's rules first.
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
An instant coffee has fewer variables than a filter, which means the few that exist carry more weight. Dose, water temperature and the order you put things in the mug are all of them, and getting the third one right costs nothing.
The Standard Mug
The Kettle Latte
Made with this tea
The Paste Method Mug
How to make The Paste Method Mug with Nescafe Gold Blend.
- 1 rounded teaspoon (about 1.8g) Nescafe Gold Blend
- 200ml water at about 90 degrees
- A splash of milk, optional
- Boil the kettle, then let thirty seconds pass before you use it.
- Spoon the granules into a mug that is completely dry, then work them into a paste with a spoonful of the hot water.
- Fill to 200ml and stir once more.
- Taste it black before you decide on milk; the roast sweetness reads clearer without it.
What you'll end up with: An even, clean mug with nothing floating on top, and no bitterness from scalded granules.
Kettle Latte
How to make Kettle Latte with Nescafe Gold Blend.
- 2 rounded teaspoons Nescafe Gold Blend
- 1 tablespoon hot water
- 200ml milk of any kind
- A handheld milk whisk, optional
- Paste the granules and the tablespoon of hot water together at 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: A milky coffee with more body than the same jar gives with water, because milk fat carries the roast sweetness further.
Iced Gold Blend
How to make Iced Gold Blend with Nescafe Gold Blend.
- 1 rounded teaspoon Nescafe Gold Blend
- 30ml hot water, then 150ml cold milk or water
- A tall glass packed with ice
- Dissolve the rounded teaspoon in 30ml of hot water, stirring until the concentrate is completely smooth.
- Lengthen with 150ml of cold milk or cold water.
- Pour the lot over ice heaped right to the top of the glass.
- Pack the glass full; a half-filled glass melts and dilutes.
What you'll end up with: An iced coffee in two minutes that still smells of coffee, because the aroma work happened in the hot dissolve.
Whipped Dalgona Top
How to make Whipped Dalgona Top with Nescafe Gold Blend.
- 2 tablespoons Nescafe Gold Blend
- 2 tablespoons caster sugar
- 2 tablespoons hot water
- 300ml cold milk
- Combine coffee, sugar and hot water in matching amounts, two tablespoons apiece, in a mixing bowl.
- Whisk it vigorously for three to four minutes, until it goes pale and stands in soft peaks.
- Fill two glasses with cold milk and ice.
- Spoon the whipped coffee on top and let people stir it through themselves.
What you'll end up with: A caramel-coloured foam that sits on the milk for a good ten minutes. Freeze-dried granules whip better than powder, which is why this works with this jar.
Tiramisu Soak
How to make Tiramisu Soak with Nescafe Gold Blend.
- 4 rounded teaspoons Nescafe Gold Blend
- 250ml hot water
- 1 tablespoon caster sugar
- Sponge fingers and your usual mascarpone layer
- Dissolve the coffee and sugar in the hot water and leave it to go completely cold.
- Dip each sponge finger for one second only; a soaked finger collapses.
- Layer the soaked fingers with mascarpone, then refrigerate for four hours or more.
- Dust with cocoa just before serving, not before chilling.
What you'll end up with: A soak that is strong enough to read as coffee without the bitter edge that makes tiramisu taste harsh. The low bitterness of this jar is an advantage here.
Coffee Loaf Cake
How to make Coffee Loaf Cake with Nescafe Gold Blend.
- 3 rounded teaspoons Nescafe Gold Blend
- 2 tablespoons boiling water
- Your usual 2-egg loaf batter
- Icing sugar for the drizzle
- Dissolve the coffee in the boiling water, stirring to a thick concentrate, and let it go cold.
- Beat two thirds of the cooled concentrate into the batter right at the end, keeping the flour from being overworked.
- Bake as usual and cool the loaf completely in the tin.
- Mix the last third into icing sugar for a drizzle that actually tastes of coffee.
What you'll end up with: A loaf with real coffee flavour rather than a brown colour. A soluble coffee is better than brewed here because it adds no extra liquid to the batter.
Brewing the perfect cup
What’s in it, what to know
Inside the pack
| Ingredient | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Soluble coffee, freeze dried | the whole jar | There is nothing else in it. The freeze-drying step is what keeps the aromatics and gives the low bitterness the line is bought for. |
| Measure per mug | ~1.8g | One rounded teaspoon per 200ml, which is roughly 52 mugs from the 95g jar by our reckoning. |
Ingredients and allergens. The ingredients published for this 95g jar's barcode name none of the 14 major allergens. Recipes are revised from time to time, which is why the label on your own jar outranks this page.
Ingredients, as published for this barcode: Soluble coffee, roast coffee, ground coffee (3%).
Ingredient and nutrition data for this barcode: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. If they ever disagree, the 95g jar in front of you is right.
Pack: Nescafe Gold Blend Instant Coffee, 95g; freeze-dried soluble coffee in a jar. Best before the date printed on the pack, and best within a couple of months of opening.
Full ingredients, nutrition and allergen details are printed on the jar now on sale in the UK, and that label is the one to rely on when you buy.
Sourcing & blend. Nescafe Gold Blend Instant Coffee, 95g is made by Nescafe, the Nestle coffee brand that has been producing soluble coffee since 1938. Gold Blend is the freeze-dried tier of that range, sitting above the spray-dried everyday jars. 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. You get the jar sold in UK shops today, not an imported version made to another specification.
What is in Nescafe Gold Blend Instant Coffee, 95g, and what is not:
- In: freeze-dried soluble coffee, and nothing else. No milk powder, no sugar, no flavouring.
- No artificial colours, preservatives or added sugar: this is a black coffee, not a flavoured or sweetened mix. The only sweetness here is what the roast puts there.
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Source: teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Nescafe Gold Blend Instant Coffee, 95g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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