I recently received an e-mail message from a visitor concerning "ready-to-drink" coffee and tea. I didn't know he was talking about self-heating cans. I thought he was talking about iced coffee, or cold coffee in a can. I plead ignorance – innovations like hot coffee in a can wouldn't appear as quickly in my neck of the woods, the Philippines, as they would in Australia or the United States.

Research – Cold Coffee in a Can

If you're familiar with the Starbucks Frappucino line, you're probably also familiar with other coffee brands in a can. I've been familiar with them since 1987, when I was stationed on Okinawa. In fact, the canned coffee brand I popped out of vending machines was UCC Coffee.

As you may have guessed, I wasn't impressed when I returned to the United States in 1988 and found iced coffee in the local supermarkets. It was already old hat to me. Even when the Starbucks coffee started appearing everywhere (in bottles), I was less than enthusiastic about it.

Research – Hot Coffee in a Can

Since I missed the big start of hot coffee in a can, I had to do some research and I didn't know where to start until my e-mail contact mentioned Hot-Can. It was interesting information, to say the least.

The idea isn't new. Self-heating containers have been around since before World War II. What's new is the technology behind it, which was only developed within the last decade. An eye-opening article, "Kitchen in a can for people on the go", explains it very well.

I didn't see any hot coffee in a can products before I moved away from the United States and I haven't seen any since arriving in the Philippines. This tells me that they're just barely taking off. Well, since Nestlé joined in, and Nestlé Philippines is a prominent company in the Philippines, I expect that I'll find these products somewhere soon, even if I have to look for them specifically.

Price Points

I don't know how much the hot coffee in a can sells for. Since I buy most of my food at the Royal Subic store at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, I expect the price to be comparable to the prices in the US, Australia and New Zealand since they import from those places (among others).

It wouldn't do me any good to find the prices online – they may or may not even be close to what I would pay here. Nevertheless, I'm interested in taste testing some hot canned coffee as soon as I can.

Similar Articles:

• The Cuisinart DCC-1150 Coffee Maker
• Taste Testing Café Time Coffee
• Nescafé Protect – Green Coffee Beans Combined with Regular Coffee Beans
• The New Starbucks Coffee Shop at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone
• Is Coffee Beginning to Get Scarce?

My friend, Lin, has already done the research at Consumer Reports for the lists I'm presenting. Unlike the top 10 coffee brands by sales, these are lists of the best tasting coffee. All I'm doing is regurgitating her lists as bite-sized morsels of information.

The Top 10 Caffeinated Coffee Brands with a "Good" Rating

• Starbucks House Blend – $11.37 per pound, 26 cents per cup
• Green Mountain Signature Nantucket Blend – $11.21 per pound, 23 cents per cup
• Dunkin' Donuts Dark Roast – $11.39 per pound, 28 cents per cup
• Allegro Blend Light Roast (Whole Foods) – $13.32 per pound, 32 cents per cup
• Archer Farms Breakfast Blend (Target) – $8.56 per pound, 29 cents per cup
• Kickapoo Organic Driftless Morning – $13.32 per pound, 32 cents per cup
• Peet's House Blend – $12.91 per pound, 30 cents per cup
• Sam's Choice House Blend Medium Roast (Walmart) – $8.00 per pound, 18 cents per cup
• Eight O'Clock Original – $7.35 per pound, 16 cents per cup
• Melitta Classic Blend Medium Roast – $7.08 per pound, 11 cents per cup

Top 10 Caffeinated Coffee Brands with a "Fair" Rating

• Caribou Daybreak Morning Blend – $11.52 per lb, 42 cents per cup
• New England Breakfast Blend – $7.12 per lb, 11 cents per cup
• Folgers Gourmet Selections Morning Café – $8.29 per lb, 9 cents per cup
• Chock full o' Nuts Original – $4.75 per lb, 12 cents per cup
• Maxwell Breakfast Blend Mild – $5.00 per lb, 4 cents per cup
• Folgers Breakfast Blend Mild – $5.39 per lb, 6 cents per cup
• Bucks County Breakfast Blend – $11.95 per lb, 44 cents per cup
• Maxwell House Original Roast Medium – $4.94 per lb, 5 cents per cup
• Maxwell House Master Blend Mild – $4.72 per lb, 4 cents per cup
• Folgers Classic Roast Medium – $5.69 per lb, 5 cents per cup

Decaffeinated Coffee Brands with a "Good" Rating

• Allegro Organic Decaf Blend Medium Dark (Whole Foods) – $18.65 per lb, 42 cents per cup
• Starbucks Decaf House Blend – $12.36 per lb, 28 cents per cup
• Peet's Decaf House Blend – $12.80 per lb, 29 cents per cup
• Caribou Daybreak Morning Blend Decaf – $13.99 per lb, 46 cents per cup
• Archer Farms Breakfast Blend Decaffeinated (Target) – $9.05 per lb, 34 cents per cup
• Seattle's Best Blend Decaf Light Roast – $9.59 per lb, 15 cents per cup
• Kickapoo Organic Decaf Breakfast Blend – $14.65 per lb, 32 cents per cup
• Sam's Choice Organic Blend Decaffeinated – $8.00 per lb, 18 cents per cup
• Bucks County Decaf Breakfast Blend – $11.70 per lb, 42 cents per cup

Decaffeinated Coffee Brands with a "Fair" Rating

I have no prices on these:

• Maxwell House Decaf Original Roast Medium
• Eight O'Clock Decaffeinated Original
• Dunkin' Donuts Dunkin' Decaf
• Folgers Classic Decaf Medium coffees.

I honestly don't agree with the taste testers of Consumer Reports, but taste is something as individual as fingerprints. What you like and what I like may be complete opposites.

Similar Articles:

• What are the Top 10 Coffee Brands?
• When Trying to Save Money by Buying Cheap Coffee, Never Settle for Second Best
• Taste Testing Café Time Coffee
• A Lack of Coffee Makers in Olongapo City, Philippines
• Memories of Mornings with Folgers Coffee

While attempting to find out what the top 10 coffee brands are, I discovered a problem. I can't seem to find any data more recent than the end of 2008, and I can't tell if this data is reflecting global sales or if it's US-centric. There are those that will argue that the majority of real coffee drinkers are in the US, but after having been around the world, literally, I can't agree. Perhaps it's true in overall volume, but not in percentage.

The Top 10 Coffee Brands

Here are the top 10 coffee brands as reported by the press:

1. Folgers: $419.0 million in sales. Folgers is by far the largest selling coffee brand with a market share of 21.60 percent. Maybe Folgers coffee really is the best part of waking up.
2. Maxwell House: $283.7 million in sales. The second largest coffee brand, with a market share of 14.62 percent, Maxwell House was first created in 1892 at a Nashville, Tennessee hotel, the Maxwell House Hotel.
3. Starbucks: $189.2 million in sales. Although Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, it's the third largest overall coffee brand in the U.S. with a 9.75 percent market share.
4. Folgers Coffeehouse: $127.9 million in sales. An offshoot of the main Folgers brand, the Folgers Coffeehouse series is a gourmet branded coffee. The Folgers Coffeehouse line, a Proctor & Gamble brand, has a market share of 6.59 percent.
5. Maxwell House Master Blend: $77.5 million in sales. This gourmet spin-off of the Maxwell brand is part of the Kraft Foods family, and has a market share of 3.99 percent.
6. Chock full o'Nuts: $44.1 million in sales. The brand started as a New York store in 1932 and evolved into the sixth largest coffee brand with a 2.27 percent market share.
7. Millstone: $43.5 million in sales. Millstone, with 2.24 percent of the market, was a private coffee brand until Proctor & Gamble purchased it in 1996.
8. Seattle's Best: $42.8 million in sales. In addition to roasting and distributing coffee, the private company also has stores serving coffee throughout the U.S. and Canada. Seattle's Best has a market share of 2.21 percent. Seattle's Best has been a subsidiary of Starbucks since 2003.
9. Eight O'Clock: $38.5 million in sales. The brand, with a 1.98 percent market share, was owned by The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company until 2003 when A&P sold it to an investment firm, creating the Eight O'Clock Coffee Company.
10. Yuban: $37.4 million in sales. This brand, part of Kraft Foods, promotes itself as being environmentally friendly by helping protect the environment and wildlife in coffee growing regions. Yuban has a market share of 1.93 percent.

Missing from the List

The above list comes as no surprise to me. The top selling brands of coffee are also the brands of the companies that advertise their coffee the most. A day doesn't go by without a TV or radio commercial being broadcast about Folgers and Maxwell House. To be honest, I've haven't even tried half of the brands on the list and frankly, I don't intend to try them.

I'm sure there are other good coffee brands (but not necessarily the best coffee brands) that just didn't make it into the top ten, but I can't find any information publicized for them in the press. Those that sell primarily iced coffee (in a can or bottle) or primarily instant coffee wouldn't make it into any list, I'm sure.

Similar Articles:

• The Top Coffee Brands according to Consumer Reports
• When Trying to Save Money by Buying Cheap Coffee, Never Settle for Second Best
• Starbucks Instant Coffee? Via Ready Brew is Just Too Expensive
• Seattle's Best Coffee Reinvents Itself
• Choose your Pod Coffee Maker Wisely

I spotted a news article and read various sources to discover that Starbucks will be rolling out with a new instant coffee called "Via Ready Brew" in the US and Canada during September. The price? While there is no firm price set, they plan to charge USD $2.95 for a "book" of three or $9.95 for a box of 12. Come again? There is no way on Earth I would spend that much for instant coffee, regardless of what brand it is.

A Mistaken Assumption?

Apparently, Via Ready Brew had a successful introduction in Seattle (the home of Starbucks) and some places in the state of Illinois. Each packet is equivalent to one cup of Starbucks coffee, making each cup of "instant coffee" more expensive than people pay for the current top brands.

I personally think they're assuming too much. After the novelty wears off, I'm guessing they'll have excess product on the shelves and will start putting it on sale just to clear their inventories. Even if they sell it in the regular Starbucks coffee shops, I predict sales will be lukewarm at best.

Why do I think this way? Most people who can afford to drink coffee at Starbucks are looking for hot coffee prepared in a unique way. They're not looking for instant coffee which won't be any better than the best instant coffee already on the market. Now, I don't know what the "best" instant coffee brands on the market are, but I'm willing to guess they're the most expensive brands found at grocery stores. I speak of brands like Folgers and Nescafé.

Folgers Coffee Crystals

I don't pay attention too much to names on the labels, but I can't help remembering the commercial advertisements on TV. Things like "it's mountain grown, the freshest kind" and "we've secretly replaced their gourmet coffee with Folgers coffee crystals" readily come to mind.

I don't know what the current price is, but I guarantee you it's a jar for less than $9.95 and a lot more than 12 cups.

Nescafé Taster's Choice

My parents always drank Taster's Choice instant coffee, long before I knew it was a label from Nescafé. They marketed it as freeze-dried coffee to seal in the flavor. Ho-hum, it doesn't taste any better than Folgers, but it's around the same price.

When I buy instant coffee, I buy Nescafé Classic, which is a coffee powder. It's around 30 cups for about $4.25 a jar. One of my relatives gave me a jar of Nescafé Red Cup, which is coffee granules instead of powder, but I really couldn't tell the difference in taste.

A Huge Instant Coffee Market

Who can blame Starbucks for trying to get a chunk of the $17 billion in annual revenue generated by instant coffee sales? I don't, but I think they're going about it the wrong way. Going up against the longtime favorites, two of which I mentioned, is going to be a difficult task at the prices they're planning to charge.

I'm no expert, but I believe most instant coffee buyers are grocery shoppers, not coffee shop regulars. Only time will tell, but I believe we'll see the results of their efforts within six months. Prices will either come down or sales will stop. That's my prediction and I'm sticking to it.

Similar Articles:

• What are the Top 10 Coffee Brands?
• When Trying to Save Money by Buying Cheap Coffee, Never Settle for Second Best
• Is Coffee Beginning to Get Scarce?
• The Top Coffee Brands according to Consumer Reports
• Nescafé Protect – Green Coffee Beans Combined with Regular Coffee Beans