Price Review: Filter Coffee VS Instant Coffee

Walking through the coffee aisle at any supermarket is a wonderful experience. The coffee aroma wafting through the air, thousands of instant coffee options and if you’re lucky – a demo stand offering free samples. Mmm, yummy. Sometimes it makes the entire month-end shopping experience bearable. We’ve done a review on the bottom line when it comes to Filter Coffee VS Instant Coffee.

Filter Coffee: A Price Overview

Filter coffee is probably the highest quality-to-cost ratio I’m aware of, in terms of coffee. It it simply roast coffee beans which have been ground up. Price influencers include the initial cost of your machine; whether you choose to go for a commercial / industrial strength coffee machine, or a retail coffee machine – your purchase price will likely be higher than the price of a kettle. You should also factor in the cost of filters – at least one filter for each pot of coffee brewed. Filter Coffee comes in endless sizes, roast levels and origins. An average 250g bag of House of Coffee’s VIP Gold Blend sells for approximately R55.00 per pack. Each filter coffee machine has different sizing, but as a rule of thumb, use one heaped spoon of coffee per cup you wish to brew. If you have a 2 litre pot, that means you will brew four cups of coffee. Four heaped scoops of coffee is about 80g – so from a bag of filter coffee you can expect to yield about fifteen 250ml cups of high-grade coffee. That works out roughly, including filters, to less than R4.00 per cup of coffee. That means great value for money in my books!

Instant Coffee: A Price Overview

The range of brands selling instant coffee stretches miles. To make sure we’re talking the same lingo though, we are referring to high-end coffee which is freeze-dried. Not a chicory based coffee nor a spray dried coffee. Again, for argument’s sake, we will use Jacob’s Kronung as our pricing indicator. Major retailers have it selling for R80.00 for a 200g jar. Some basic maths reveals that you would spend approximately R4.00 per cup of coffee, working off two teaspoons per cup and as such, you can expect to yield 20 cups of coffee per jar of Instant Coffee.

Coffee’s Hidden Prices

You may think we’ve covered all the bases; equipment, filters and coffee. But what about fresh milk, sugar and sometimes even creamer? These can dramatically add to the cost of your coffee spend if the aren’t kept in-check. Moreover, consider electrical requirements, maintenance, usage and lastly – what suits YOU.

Both types of coffee are readily available; the machines both have their perks and flaws and in both cases, your milk and sugar costs are entirely separate and can eventually add up.

To me it comes down to personal taste. If you are a fan of Jacobs, Illy or Coffee House – then buy that brand. If you can taste and appreciate the difference of filter coffee, then go for that. There is no right or wrong. The fundamental difference between Filter coffee and Instant coffee is their composition. Filter coffee is ground-up coffee beans, which still require a filter. Instant coffee is pre-prepared coffee which is dehydrated and can be added directly to boiling water to infuse – it doesn’t require any filtration.

Since we can see they both cost an average of R4.00 per cup, you have some decisions to make.

Check out the differences between commercial and retail filter coffee machines if you are headed towards that decision. If not, there are a plethora of excellent instant coffee brands to choose from and their brewing method stays the same – “just add water”. 🙂