The most disgusting coffee on the planet

I am not what you would call a coffee afficiando. I do not sit around in wanky cafes drinking miniscule cups of coffee one after another, smoking french cigarettes and discussing beat poets and philosophy. I am more your read the paper and have a cup of coffee type coffee drinker. One cup per day is all I need. Any more and I start to get the shakes. My tastes are simple - a nice latte, not too weak, not too strong - just right. I know that a latte sounds like a girls drink, but screw it, I like them. If I have been drinking and it is late at night and I need a kick to keep me going then a machiato is the deal (is that the correct spelling) - a short, sharp hit of caffeine with sugar. However, the latte is perfect for lingering over the newspaper in the morning.

That being said, there are times when I like to have a second coffee, and my coffee of choice for number two is an iced coffee. There is just one problem - all iced coffee sold east of Broken Hill is disgusting. It is insipid, over sweetened muck. It is undrinkable liquid poo.

A few months back, I was walking down a supermarket aisle looking for Milo when I spotted a packet of Nescafe Iced Latte. I am usually suspicious of all dried stuff that comes in a packet, but my need for iced coffee was so bad that I forked out $5 for a packet and took it home in the desperate hope that it might be drinkable.

Boy, was I wrong. If you think the stuff in the fridge is bad (like Moove), then nothing will prepare you for the hideousness of Iced Latte. I should have read the contents list on the back - milk solids (40%), sugar, maltodextrin (from corn), coffee (7%), flavours, anticaking agent (554), emusifier (soy lecithin), contains wheat ingredients.

Hmm. I make iced coffee at home occasionally, and all it takes is milk, coffee, sugar, hot water and ice cubes. The idea of adding flavours, emulsifiers or anticaking agents is just a bit bizarre - after all, it is just sweet milky coffee that has been chilled.


My iced coffee of choice is Brownes Coffee Chill, but it doesn't seem to be sold outside of WA. Whenever friends or family visit from the west, I get them to pack a few cartons of frozen Coffee Chill in their luggage. Unfortunately, the visits are few and far between, so it can be months between each libation.

The Coffee Chill contains skim milk, whole milk, sugar, coffee powder, percolated coffee and flavour. It is described as "strong percolated iced coffee", which is what makes it streets ahead of the eastern states muck. It actually tastes of coffee and seems to contain about half the sugar of the Sydney brands. Drinking it does not make your teeth feel like they are about to fall out.

Up until a few months ago, Brownes iced coffee was available in Woolies supermarkets in NSW. It was not Coffee Chill - it was some half arsed iced coffee that they had tailored for the eastern markets. However, it still beat the living daylights out of the local product. I bought it in supermarkets on the north coast on a trip to Brisbane, I bought it in supermarkets on the way to Melbourne, I bought it on the south coast down below Nowra, and most of all, I bought it at the Woolies in Balmain. I used to trek over to Balmain on Thursday night (because that seemed to be the night they restocked the dairy fridge) and buy as many cartons of the Coffee Chill substitute as I could fit into my shopping basket. Then one day, the buggers disappeared, never to return. I rang Woolies soon after and asked for their dairy department, and when I was put through, they denied that they had ever stocked the product.

Either they don't know what they stock, or they are liars.

I rang Brownes today on their customer service line (1800 675 484) and left a message on their answering machine asking whether they are flogging iced coffee through any outlets in NSW. Brownes are now owned by Fontera Brands, which seems to be a good sized company. They must have some pull with the supermarket chains and should be able to stock some product somewhere. On the other hand, Brownes might be a behemoth in the West, but it is a nothing brand east of the nullarbor. You can go into just about any shop in WA and find a fridge full of Brownes products, including several different types of iced coffee. There is light weight fat free muck for the chicks, their version of "Real Coke" iced coffee, and Coffee Chill.

Until about 15 years ago, there was only one line of iced coffee (which I call the real coke version). Then, they decided to stretch the brand and came out with the pissy version and the strong version. Me, I prefer the new, stronger version over the old style traditional number.

You know my gripe? You can buy the god awful Nescafe product in supermarkets from coast to coast. However, you can't buy the best product on the planet east of Eucla. There is something wrong with this universe that we live in.