Alpine Start Instant Review

For early alpine missions and bleary-eyed camp mornings when you need a quick caffeine fix before you bolt into your day, nothing beats the speed and efficiency of instant coffee — though for most coffee drinkers, the taste of instant is undrinkable at best. Not so with Alpine Start. Not only is their Original Blend delicious for an instant coffee, but they also offer dairy-free and vegan Dirty Chai and Coffee + Creamer. Sure, it still has a barely discernible instant flavor, and if you add too much water, it loses flavor real quick, but for those mornings when drinking coffee isn't the only reason you got out of bed, Alpine Start is an unbeatable instant for that early morning buzz.

Performance Comparison

Brew Features

Brewing instant coffee requires so little mental fortitude that even on your earliest mornings, you're sure to nail it. Alpine Start is no different - and it even comes in a variety of flavors. Simply dump the contents of the packet into a mug, add hot water (though cold water works too), mix, and drink. We recommend using 5-7oz of water for the best flavor, a little less than what the instructions on the package say. It's so easy we're surprised ravens haven't caught on and stolen our packets of Alpine Start for themselves.

Taste

Most instant coffee tastes terrible. Full stop. But Alpine Start is different — it's surprisingly delightful and will have even the pickiest coffee connoisseur reaching for a second cup.

While it didn't out-compete the top-performers in this metric — which were all fresh coffee brewers — we were honestly surprised by the yummy flavor of Alpine Start. In our blind taste tests, our testers ranked the Original Blend much higher than other instants in our review. One reviewer even commented that it was bright, bold, and had a great mouthfeel — giving one of the French presses a run for their money. Color us shocked. Instant coffee doesn't normally hold a flame to the fresh brewers in our review, but as we said, Alpine Start is different. For our review, we had the pleasure of trying one of their variety packs that included the Original Blend, Dirty Chai, and Coffee + Creamer — all vegan and dairy-free (the creaminess comes from coconut). Our lead testers prefer their coffee black as a moonless night, so they preferred the Original. However, the Dirty Chai is subtly spicy, and a little sweet, and the Coffee + Creamer is nice and smooth. Pretty dang awesome, if you ask us, and you kinda did, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

Ease of Use

Instants are undeniably easy and Alpine Start is no different. Pour, mix, drink — it's as simple as that.

From acquiescing to the nagging reminder of your alarm to wide-awake and fully caffeinated requires minimal effort. Indeed, making Alpine Start requires almost as little effort as repeatedly hitting the snooze button. Simply tear into the packet, dump the contents in your cup, add hot water, mix, and go. The only difficult part of the whole equation is heating your water, and if that's too complicated for your pre-caffeinated mind — no problem — just mix your instant with cold water instead.

Group Cooking

Alpine Start — or any instant — isn't our go-to method for caffeinating a large crew, which is why it did not score favorably in this department.

However, given the ease and speed at which you can blast through a round of this stuff, you could make multiple cups of coffee with a huge pot of water and a handful of instant coffee packets in less time than you could recharge your pour-over. While it isn't ideal, it's not the worst option either.

Portability

Given the minimal space it commands, portability is one of the metrics where Alpine Start truly shines.

While instant coffee produces a little more waste than other coffee brewing options, each packet takes up very little room in your food bag. For missions when space is at an absolute premium, you'll hardly notice a few packets of Alpine Start in your kit.

Weight

At 0.13 oz per packet for the Alpine Start Original Blend, this is the lightest instant coffee in our review. This paltry weight is a testament to the care put into choosing packaging materials — Alpine Start is considerably lighter than the competition.

Value

Alpine Start instant coffee is not the cheapest way to satisfy your morning coffee craving. That said, they do offer bulk instant coffee and cut a great deal when you buy three boxes at once. While we prefer a more economical and less wasteful way to procure our daily caffeine fix, there is a time and a place for good instant coffee. On early mornings deep in the backcountry where weight, space, and speed are essential elements of a successful adventure, Alpine Start provides a delicious instant coffee at a reasonable price.

It's worth mentioning that an aspect of value can — and should — be assigned to good company values. Even if you pay a bit more for something, if that money is going to support a good cause we feel it increases value. Alpine Start, for their part, donates a portion of all sales to 1% for the Planet and they are a Foundation Partner with Protect Our Winters (POW).

Conclusion

When you need a quick, easy, and painless way to make coffee but don't want to scrimp on flavor, Alpine Start instant is the way to go. It's lightweight, highly portable, and impressively tasty. They even offer a selection of vegan/dairy-free flavors to cover all your cravings. We love it, and we think you will too.