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?

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

The time before last that I drove to the Subic Royal store aboard the Subic Bay Freeport Zone to go grocery shopping, I noticed a new Starbucks coffee shop in the process of being completed. I made a mental note that I'd have to stop in and take a look around when it was done. Well, it was done by the following trip (more than a month later), but I didn't feel like stopping in at the time. Little did I know that my son had already been there.

Bum Scoop

A couple of days ago, one of my sisters-in-law (Florian) told another sister-in-law (Darlene) that they sold t-shirts and blouses at the Starbucks coffee shop. She had overheard it in a conversation while riding a bus from Olongapo to Bataan. The next day, I decided to go there with my son, Darlene and her daughter, Ashlene (who's 3-years old I think).

The coffee shop is easy to find because it's on the corner of Rizal Highway and Argonaut Street and it almost stands out like a sore thumb. Parking is on Rizal Avenue on the opposite side of the intersection, so going through the intersection and turning around in order to park in that parking lot was interesting to say the least. Cars coming off the exit from the Subic expressway don't slow down for anything as they try to beat the light at that corner.

Well, there were things for sale at the Starbucks coffee shop, like coffee mugs and other assorted items, but not clothing of any kind. Florian must have heard the conversation wrong. I now call her "Bum Scoop Florian".

Starbucks Coffee Prices

My son wanted a "Java Chip" drink like he'd had before so I ordered two of them. I also ordered an "Apple Berry Freeze" (apple and strawberry with crushed ice) for Ashlene since Darlene didn't want anything. When I paid P490 (just over USD $10) for the drinks, I remembered why I didn't frequently go to Starbucks when I was in the US. I'm sorry, but those prices are absurd.

What's even more absurd is that Starbucks expects to do well at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone. Their prices are too high for the average resident in the Philippines, so they must be catering to the upper class and tourists. I'm not in the upper class and I'm not a tourist, so I guess I won't be going back there again. I'd be much better off (and probably "save" a lot of money) by buying my own coffee beans, a coffee grinder and brewing my own coffee.

On second thought, I think I'll stick to making coffee like Starbucks at home using Nescafé instant coffee and milk. My worn-out taste buds really can't tell the difference.

Similar Articles:

• Taste Testing Café Time Coffee
• Hot Coffee in a Can?
• It All Starts with Espresso in US Coffee Shops
• Did Someone Say Coffee and Donuts?
• Buying a New Coffee Maker – the Search is Over

After watching the employees at one of the Starbucks locations in Phoenix, Arizona, my wife decided to do an experiment to see if she could make coffee that tasted as good as Starbucks coffee. More specifically, she wanted to reproduce the taste of their lattes.

Latte is Italian for Milk

Lattes were invented in the US. In Italy, latte means milk. It's probably okay to order a cafe latte in Italy now, after all the publicity of the drink, but years ago it would have fetched you a glass of milk.

In the US, a latte is quite simply a cup of coffee made with milk instead of water.

It Starts With Espresso

Starbucks has machines which produce espresso, a concentrated coffee beverage brewed by forcing very hot water under high pressure through coffee that has been ground to a consistency between extremely fine and powder. Espresso, which was invented in Italy, is used as the base for lattes, cappuccinos and mochas.

My wife noticed that two shots of espresso were added to the large drinks at Starbucks, while they added only one shot to the smaller drinks.

How to Mimic a Latte

It's easy to do if you have your own personal espresso machine. What if you don't? Here's how my wife did it:

She filled a cup with milk (whole milk, not 2%, 1% or skim milk), heated it in the microwave oven for 2 minutes, added two spoons of coffee power and stirred. I'm talking about the spoons you eat with, not teaspoons for measuring.

What you end up is a strong cup of coffee, a simple latte. If you want to turn it into a cappuccino, add whip cream to the top. If you want to turn it into a mocha, add a spoonful of sweetened, powdered chocolate.

Why Starbucks instead of at home?

If it's so easy to make coffee that tastes like Starbucks coffee at home, then why don't people do that instead of spending much more time at coffee shops like that? I could never afford to regularly stop at Starbucks and probably wouldn't make it a point to do so even if I had a Starbucks gift card.

People are always "on the go" and don't take the time at home to enjoy the simple pleasures, choosing instead to stop at coffee shops on the way to work or on the way home. It's the fast-paced societies that keep companies like Starbucks in business. They can keep their business. I'll drink my lattes and cappuccinos at home.

Similar Articles:

• It All Starts with Espresso in US Coffee Shops
• The "Real" Coffee Drinker
• Iced Tea or Iced Coffee?
• Five Most Commonly Sold Drinks
• Taste Testing Café Time Coffee