Nestle Coffee Mate Original Review

I rarely have cream at home because I'm not a regular coffee drinker, so whenever I buy hot coffee when I'm out, I force myself to get cream for the novelty factor. To be honest, milk or cream is fine for me, I don't have a huge preference for either. The former is actually stocked regularly where I live. Trying to stock cream usually ends with a vat of cream going into the garbage or a marathon day of coffee drinking. Wish there was something that didn't go bad as quickly...

Coffee is carving a path back into my life and I've decided to give Coffee-Mate a chance. The availability of a milk or cream substitute in dry form was very appealing for a not so regular coffee maker such as myself.

Overview
A jar of white powder stored in a plastic container. I opened the container by unscrewing the plastic lid and peeling off a seal underneath it. The lid had a flip-up tab to allow for the Coffee-Mate powder to be poured in a more controlled manner. This was the Original flavor. I saw other more interesting sounding flavors at the store, but they seemed "interesting" enough that I didn't see myself wanting to have them on a regular basis.


Nestle Coffee-Mate Container

Cooking
I've used this jar of Coffee-Mate Original about a dozen times so far. The majority of the time, this was used with Nescafe instant coffee. In summary, I boiled water, added instant coffee and sugar by eye, and then added Coffee-Mate by eye -- instructions were only used as a general guideline. Some experimentation was done by varying the quantity of Coffee-Mate from one tablespoon to two and lots of in-betweens.

While a flip-up lid on the Coffee-Mate container's lid was available to facilitate pouring, I stopped using it after the first few times. The powder didn't appear to be flowing very well or at least not as well as sugar -- it was going places I didn't want it to. This led me to start using a spoon. I'll probably go back to using the tab once the spoon isn't long enough to reach in anymore.


Nestle Coffee-Mate: Inside the Container

Taste & Verdict
It tastes like... something? I took a bit more time to gather my thoughts on this one because I didn't really know what to make of it. There appeared to be a taste but not one that was very obvious like dropping a "tablespoon" of rum or Jack Daniels into my coke. It definitely turned the color of my coffee lighter like cream or milk -- how much depended on how much of the powder I added.  In terms of taste, the Coffee-Mate Original generally tasted similar to cream to me.

Nescafe Instant Coffee

I investigated further by mixing a tablespoon of Coffee-Mate with hot water and sampling -- didn't drink it all because that didn't seem right. What I tasted was best described as a plain wafer cracker minus the cream filling, just like the picture on the front of the jar.

Overall, the Coffee-Mate worked for me. Two tablespoons into my 16 oz. tumbler filled almost to the top worked best for me. It felt similar to adding cream or milk to my coffee. Did it turn the taste from a 10/10 to a 20/10? I didn't think it did. The price wasn't bad though at around CAD$ 3.50. Having it in stock on a regular basis wouldn't be a bad idea for me since it shouldn't go bad anywhere near as quickly as fresh dairy products. I like it enough to give the other flavors a shot.