Shhhhhhh!  I’m about to tell you a secret!  Look both ways and vow to keep it to yourself, because I’m only going to tell you this once. 

I have begun drinking instant coffee! 

I know, I know, please don’t tell anyone. I have two coffeemakers sitting on my kitchen counter, but lately all I’ve been using is my teakettle to boil water and my jar of Taster’s Choice. 

Allow me to explain before you sentence me to the outer darkness. 

When my dear late husband John and I were in Scotland in 2017, our tour bus stopped so we could all get out, stretch our legs, and go into the food and gift shop. It was October, but so cold in Scotland that I ran for the clothing racks to buy wool hats, gloves, and sweaters for us. Oh my gosh, it was frigid! Now I know why Scotland has so many sheep farms. 

While I was clothes shopping, I sent John to get me a cup of coffee at the snack bar. I had speed-shopped as usual, but wondered what was taking him so long. When he came back, he was holding a suspiciously small cup. He had gotten me an espresso. Why, you ask?  Because he saw that the coffee they were serving was instant coffee, and he didn’t think I would like it. 

At that point, I was just looking for a warm beverage. What I got was liquid mud, more or less. But that put me on to the fact that the Scots often drink instant coffee. 

Doing a bit of research, I discovered that “instant coffee accounts for more than 34 percent of all the retail brewed coffee consumed around the world,” according to the Washington Post. And in countries where tea is the main hot drink (like the UK), instant coffee is most popular. 

My parents drank nothing but instant coffee in the 1950’s. It was the age of modern conveniences like Tang, remember?  Every morning, they would fill the kettle, let it boil, and bam! coffee instantly (see what I did there?). 

But seriously, I don’t think it was until Joe DiMaggio started advertising for Mr. Coffee (circa 1974) that they changed their ways. 

Of course, we knew folks who always brewed coffee. Dear friend Pearl Bjorklund would put her glass Pyrex percolator on the stove to brew coffee when we visited her. That fresh pot of coffee with her homemade Finnish coffee cake with cardamom was the stuff of legend. 

And then there were—and still are—the huge coffee urns brewing coffee at church or school suppers, which would always taste a bit blech by the end of the night. 

Let me be clear- I do enjoy a nicely brewed cup of coffee. But since I’m home alone, it is just so much easier to boil the water and make a cup of instant. 

And the taste isn’t half bad. I’m not going to say that it’s the best coffee I’ve ever had, but it certainly isn’t the worst. 

Turns out that it’s easy, inexpensive, and there’s much less waste. I can’t tell you how many half-pots of brewed coffee I’ve poured down the drain. Shameful, really. 

So there it is—you are now in on my dark secret. Well, it’s not really dark, it’s actually a medium French roast, if you must know. And it’s a cup of hot caffeine, which is what it’s all about in the morning, isn’t it?