There are plenty of things I’m snobby about but coffee isn’t one of them. While I admit I spend every Tuesday at a cafe that charges up to $30 for a coffee, I also have a cupboard full of instant and a long history of making low-quality home-brew iced coffees with anything from ginger beer to cream and sugar.
Coffee’s main purpose isn’t being delicious – that’s a secondary concern. Its job is getting us high, so I will take it any way it comes (though during summer I never want a hot milky drink and I’m confused why anyone does). So the idea of adding a few supermarket-stocked bottled drinks to my caffeine repertoire was very appealing to me, even if I had to ingest a dangerous amount of caffeine to make it happen.
To help me find the best iced coffees sold in Australian supermarkets, I enlisted some Sydney-based coffee experts (Diggy Doos Coffee’s head barista, Juwa Chu; Fleetwood Macchiato’s founder, Jai Pyne; Claire Chu from Condesa Co.Lab; Locked Inn’s co-owner Jon Sewell; and Chris Maybury from Only Coffee Project) and a dear friend of mine who has been drinking bottled coffees for longer than I’ve been drinking coffee. We tasted 20 products (when a brand offered a regular and strong iteration, we tried both) and scored each out of 10, as well as giving each a one to 10 rating for how strong the coffee flavour was. I excluded black coffees as they’re an entirely different drink that could warrant their own taste test.
We found three main categories of bottled iced coffee: unsweetened iced latte imitators that are slightly cheaper but worse than the average cafe iteration (perfectly drinkable), sweetened drinks that barely taste like coffee (mostly delicious) and caffeinated protein shakes the texture of melted ice-cream (traumatic – and I’ve excluded them from this article for that reason).
The best unsweetened
Hunt and Brew Australia Coffee, 400ml, $4.95 ($1.24 per 100ml), available at major supermarkets
Score: 7.5/10
How much would you be willing to pay for a slightly below-average iced latte? Not bottom of the barrel, just one that’s been left for a minute, too much ice has melted and, at least on my tasting, the flavour of the freezer has subtly slipped in like an introverted gatecrasher at a heaving house party (only the most sober, astute attenders will notice). If the answer is less than $5 then you should be buying this every week.
The other reason to buy it is that at 248mg of caffeine, Hunt and Brew has a whopping 50mg of caffeine per dollar, a ratio bested only by Ice Break and Dare’s extra-strength products (many brands including Farmdale, Toby’s Estate, Boss Coffee, Farmers Union and Oak do not display their caffeine levels).
The best sweetened
Dare Double Espresso, 500ml, $4.15 ($0.83 per 100ml), available from major supermarkets
Score: 7/10
Once when I was working as a mentor to student journalists, I asked my students if they’d like a coffee, my shout. One of them told me to surprise him. The cafe I went to had a display cabinet of snacks, including cakes, so I asked the barista if they would blend a caramel slice with a shot of coffee and some milk. He laughed and said sure. Dare tastes like that coffee – extra-sweet, caramelly and delicious in the most basic way, like milky, liquefied Fantales. The Double Espresso iteration has a bit more oomph than the regular espresso version, which is important, not just for caffeine addicts but for anyone who wants a hint of coffee flavour.
The best dairy-free
Vitasoy Almond Milk Double Espresso, 330ml, $3.60 ($1.09 per 100ml), available from major supermarkets
Score: 4.5/10
If there was ever a Steven Bradbury award given out in a taste test, it’s Vitasoy winning anything. The only reason it sits on this podium is due to the other contestants failing so spectacularly (First Press Iced Coffee Oat Milk and OMG Coffee Proatein both scored 2.5/10). While Vitasoy’s Almond Milk Double Espresso only vaguely resembles coffee, tasting like skim milk leftover from a bowl of Nutrigrain is far from the worst outcome. As one of the reviewers said, “At least it’s interesting.”
The best value
Farmdale Australian Milk Iced Coffee Flavour, 2L, $4.49 ($0.22 per 100ml), available at Aldi
Score: 5.5/10
The name of this product should tell you everything you need to know. It’s a milk product that is simply iced coffee flavoured. On the coffee flavour strength scale, it scored a lowly two out of 10 (only Farmers Union with a 1.9 scored lower). The reviewers described it as caramelly, wheaty and like ice-cream, and wrote, despite its sweetness, at least it didn’t taste artificial.
The rest
Boss Iced Latte, 237ml, $4 ($1.69 per 100ml), available from major supermarkets
Score: 6/10
After one reviewer took a sip of this he launched into a long story about the Airbnbs he used to book on holiday in the United States. Every one would have plunger coffee-making equipment that looked as though it was rarely cleaned. Each holiday he’d start the day with a coffee and, despite the quality of the beans, really enjoyed the experience. This coffee, he said, reminds him of that experience. The pros: it’s distinctly a coffee drink (a rare quality in the taste test) and has a good balance of sweetness (only 2.7g of sugar per 100ml). The cons: it’s a little watery and tastes like an average dark-roast blend at best and a good instant at worst. If it was a dollar cheaper, I’d buy this regularly.
Oak Iced Coffee, 600ml, $3.95 ($0.66 per 100ml), available from major supermarkets
Score: 6/10
I don’t understand who this product is for. It’s an ultra-sweet milky drink that many of the reviewers described as being akin to a malty, vanilla milkshake or as if a waffle cone, Biscoff or Tim Tam had been blended into milk. It’s delicious in the same way a dessert is but this is a dessert with a psychoactive drug (caffeine) in it. As one reviewer said, it’s the bubblegum vape of the coffee world – a palatable entryway to the world of legal drugs, designed with a kid’s palate in mind but produced exclusively for adults.
Ice Break Triple Shot, 500ml, $3.95 ($0.79 per 100ml), available from major supermarkets
Score: 6/10
Here’s a mystery: Ice Break lists just four ingredients: reduced fat milk, sugar, coffee and milk solids. But nearly every reviewer wrote it tastes like cereal (cornflakes being the most common choice). One thing I learned from taste testing 11 brands of instant coffee is how, with a little processing, coffee can taste quite extraordinarily uncoffee-like. Similar to Dare, the stronger version of Ice Break was the clear winner in taste.
Farmers Union Iced Coffee, 600ml, $3.70 ($0.62 per 100ml), available from major supermarkets
Score: 5/10
The side of the Farmers Union carton says: “WHEN TOUGH CALLS, IT’S A FARMERS UNION ICED COFFEE OR IT’S NOTHING.” Thank you to Farmers Union for letting me know how to perform my masculinity because before this moment I had no idea I could do that by drinking a carton of sugary milk (at 9.1g of sugar per 100ml, only Ice Break is more sugary). In unrelated news, the taste reminds me of the time I tried breast milk; I hear every batch is different, but the one I had was lighter and more neutral in flavour than cow’s milk but way, way sweeter. Plain, but very drinkable.
Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso, 220ml, $3 ($1.36 per 100ml), available at Woolworths
Score: 5/10
Narrowly outscoring Boss, Starbucks had the strongest coffee flavour of the day. The problem, the reviewers wrote, was the actual coffee. It’s hard to score it highly when it tasted like the earthy, harsh robusta beans you find in cheap south-east Asian coffee and many instant brands. It didn’t help that it tasted like it had been brewed in unfiltered water, reminding me of the cups of water I leave by my bed only to find three days later.
Toby’s Estate Iced Latte, 240ml, $4.75 ($1.98 per 100ml), available from Coles
Score: 4.5/10
Tasting Toby’s Estate, a coffee with just over a gram of sugar per 100ml, after a squadron of drinks that taste like melted ice-cream and cereal milk, was as though my Spotify playlist of Mariah Carey hits had suddenly glitched and delivered me an eight-minute oboe solo performed by an accountant – boredom can only be an effective relief for so long. Reviewers wrote it was watery, flat and dry during the aftertaste. “How I imagine Pringles would taste without salt,” one reviewer wrote. But unlike Pringles, this is the most expensive product in the market.
