by Nigel Ong
Asia is a unique playground for coffee. This is because the locals take coffee beans and prepare them to suit their taste buds, producing new styles that will satisfy many curious tongues. Some popular styles include Vietnamese, Japanese, and Asian White Coffee.
One popular maker of Asian White Coffee is Old Town, and in this post, I will be reviewing it. I will first make and then taste the coffee. I will then share what I think and if Americans would enjoy them.
What Is Asian White Coffee?
In the West, we commonly think of any coffee-with-milk recipe as White Coffee. However, in Asia, White Coffee refers to a specific style of coffee preparation that originated from Southeast Asia, specifically Singapore and Malaysia.
Asian White Coffee usually is made with a blend of beans, typically Arabica, Robusta, Excelsa, or Liberica. These beans are traditionally roasted with sugar, butter, or margarine to add additional flavors to the beans. They are then ground down for brewing.
The coffee is commonly brewed using a coffee sock. This means the coffee is prepared by filtration and also immersion. The coffee is then flavored with evaporated milk or sugar and served in a cup and saucer. Many also enjoy black coffee.
Different roasters use their own blend of beans and ingredients during roasting, similar to how Chai Wallahs in India use their secret recipe to make their Masala Chai.
As a result, if you enjoy White Coffee from a particular coffee shop, you have to go back there. This is because nobody else could produce the same taste.
Today, you can enjoy Asian White Coffee as instant coffee, not just in the shops. They are often packed in sachets; you just add hot water to make the coffee. We will be looking at one of the most popular instant Asian White coffees today from Old Town.
About Old Town White Coffee
The Old Town White Coffee is a successful Asian coffee shop chain serving traditional Asian White Coffee and food. You can imagine it as something similar to Starbucks. They also sell their pre-packaged coffee in sachets.
This instant Old Town White Coffee comes in many flavors and variations. Some include:
- Classic Old Town White Coffee
- Hazelnut Old Town White Coffee
- Old Town White Coffee With Creamer
- Old Town White Coffee Extra Rich
These White Coffee packs are available on Amazon, if you are keen to give them a try yourself.
Today, we will be looking at the Classic Old Town White Coffee. This is a 3-in-1 preparation. You have coffee, sugar, and creamer all inside the individual sachets.
This makes the coffee incredibly easy to make. Pour the content inside the sachet into a cup, add hot water, and you are good to go.
As for the brewing instructions, add about 6 fl oz (180ml) of hot water to the content of the sachet. The recommended temperature is 176°F (80°C). Each sachet is about 38 grams (slightly over 1 oz).
After making the coffee, it looks like your regular cafe-au-lait. It looks rich, creamy and should be a hearty cup of coffee. Some creamy bubbles float on the top of the coffee, but these bubbles are not as fine as the crema on your espresso.
How Does Old Town White Coffee Taste Like?
First Impressions
Once I emptied the sachet into the cup, there was little aroma. I do not expect much since most of the instant coffee I reviewed does not carry much aroma in dried form. Only the Illy Classico Instant Coffee does.
The powders do not look like your regular coffee. You can tell there are creamers inside since there is a mixture of white and brown powders. I do not see sugar granules, maybe because they have also been ground down into powders.
The aroma only came out after I poured in the hot water. The powders dissolve easily and only require a couple of stirs with a teaspoon to go into the hot water. The aroma smells of coffee, with a strong creamy flavor. If you like creamer in your coffee, you will like this.
Hot
When enjoyed hot, the coffee tastes very creamy and sweet. In fact, I think there is so much creamer here the coffee flavor takes second after the creamer. This is a very indulgent cup of coffee, and I wonder what the calorie count is like.
A quick check at the packaging shows that a cup of this coffee loads you with 172 kcal of calories. Compared to a Short Starbucks Cafe-Au-Lait with whole milk and 3.6 grams of sugar, this is rather high compared to a Short Starbucks Cafe-Au-Lait. That drink only comes with 64 kcal of calories.
The foam on the top of the coffee helps to add some airiness to the coffee, making it more enjoyable to sip. It also gave the coffee some texture in my mouth.
After several sips, I finally started to taste more coffee flavors. The bitterness of the coffee is not as intense as your regular cafe-au-lait or latte, which means this coffee is very mild.
The sweetness is a little too much for me, probably because I am never a fan of having sugar in my coffee. But if you do, you should find this coffee very enjoyable. Luckily for folks like me, there is Old Town Instant White Coffee with less sugar.
Iced
After sipping the coffee hot, I thought the sweetness was too much to handle. Will adding ice to the coffee make it less sweet, just like ice makes Coke easier to drink?
I added some ice into a glass and poured my white coffee inside. After a few stirs with the steel straw, I sipped.
I was glad I added some ice to the coffee. The colder coffee temperature helps to mute the sweet taste, making it more palatable to drink. Reducing the sweet taste also helps to bring out the creamy coffee taste, making it taste closer to your regular iced latte.
However, the creamy flavors remain the main character of the coffee. This makes the coffee perfect for those who like their coffee milky and creamy, with less coffee taste.
Old Town Instant White Coffee vs. Served In Shop
I am lucky enough to be based in Singapore, meaning I have the luxury of walking into an Old Town White Coffee and ordering a cup to sample.
The instant coffee version of the White Coffee is a close, although inferior, cousin to the original White Coffee. The coffee in the coffee shop tastes fresher, and I can at least request that the coffee be made with less sugar.
I can also taste the evaporated milk better instead of just creamer. It’s a more satisfying experience.
One good thing about it is that the difference between instant and hand-made White Coffee is not too great. I think instant or Ready-To-Drink (RTD) coffee from Starbucks tastes very different from the hand-made version and inferior.
This means you can get a similar taste of Asian White Coffee instantly, even if you live far from coffee shops that serve them.
Who Should Enjoy Old Town White Coffee?
This is a very indulgent coffee. It is very creamy and sweet, to the point that it drowns out the bitterness of the coffee, leaving only a little space for the coffee to show itself.
This means if you like your coffee rich with cream or milk, this is perfect for you. You can stop loading your cup of coffee with Coffee Mate and instead just drink the Asian White Coffee.
This coffee will also work well if you have a sweet tooth. This coffee comes with a generous amount of sugar, making it creamy, sweet, and indulgent. In fact, I don’t think it is wrong to describe this coffee as ‘decadent’ too.
Finally, suppose you have traveled to Asia, have sampled Asian White Coffee yourself, and fell in love with it. This is at least a worthy replacement to satisfy your desire to sip a cup of Asian White Coffee again.