My Old Town Caramel Salted Instant White Coffee Taste Test

by Nigel Ong

Old Town is one of the most popular makers of instant white coffee, with a wide range of options to choose from, too. 

I have reviewed many of these instant white coffee options, from regular to hazelnut-flavored ones. One popular style I have not covered is the Caramel Salted White Coffee, so I picked up a bag to try. 

In this post, I will sample the Old Town Caramel Salted White Coffee before comparing it against similar coffees in my stash. 

About Old Town Caramel Salted White Coffee

Coffee culture is worldwide, meaning they are consumed in unique ways. In Asia, you have the extra bold Turkish, Middle-Eastern style to the spicy and milky Indian, subcontinental style of coffee. 

In Southeast Asia, there is the super creamy and sweet Asian White Coffee. Here, white coffee is a specific style of coffee using unique roasting and brewing methods. Most would point to Singapore and Malaysia for this coffee style’s origin.

Asian White Coffee is usually 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. 

The idea is to produce rich, shiny coffee beans with caramelized surfaces for a rich taste. Different roasters use different formulations in their roasts, making their taste unique.

CoffeeThe is commonly brewed for brewing using filtration and immersion methods with a coffee sock. The coffee is commonly served flavored with evaporated milk or sugar. 

However, many also enjoy black coffee or mixed with milked tea. This coffee and tea mix is called Ying Yeung and is quite popular in places such as Hong Kong. 

In fact, there is a style called Cham-lo, where three drinks are mixed together – white coffee, milked tea, and Milo, a chocolate-malt drink popular in Britain and the Commonwealth world.

Today, you can enjoy Asian White Coffee as instant coffee, not just in the shops. They are often packed in what is commonly called ‘3-in-1’ sachets, with creamer, sugar, and coffee all inside. You just add hot water to make the coffee. 

The Caramel Salted White Coffee is a similar white coffee recipe from Old Town, with a twist – a bit of salted caramel is added to introduce savory notes into the coffee. 

First Impression

My Old Town Caramel Salted White Coffee pack comes in light brown, almost-beige packaging. This helps you to quickly identify the Hazelnut flavored version of the coffee from your grocery aisles.

Other styles of Old Town White Coffee use different color schemes:

  • Regular – yellow
  • Low sugar – sky blue
  • Hazelnut – green

As for the details on the packaging, they are similar across the board. Old Town is known to vary the language used on the packaging to suit the local market. 

One side uses English, while the other uses other languages. I have seen packaging in Mandarin Chinese and Malay. I would not be surprised if there’s Vietnamese or something else altogether. 

Each bag contains 15 sachets, each about 1.3 ounces (38 gm). Each sachet makes you a cup of coffee. 

As for the content, you can see a blend of three colors inside the dried powders – brown, white, and slightly translucent granules. These should be the coffee, creamer, and sugar. 

Unfortunately, there are no sugarless options or those with healthier sweeteners, such as Stevia or Equal.

My cost comes to about 70 cents per cup of coffee, making it one of the more affordable coffee options.

How Does Old Town Caramel Salted White Coffee Taste?

Making the Old Town Caramel Salted White Coffee is rather quick and easy. Simply empty a sachet of white coffee into a cup and then add hot water. Stir everything in, and you are good to go.

Old Town suggests adding about 6 fl oz (180ml) of hot water into your cup. The recommended temperature is 176°F, or 80°C if you operate in metric. I made two versions of the caramel-salted white coffee: hot and iced.

Hot

This is probably the most popular way to enjoy caramel-salted white coffee. The moment the hot water meets the powders, you will notice the aroma of the coffee. 

It has a creamy, milky, and sweet aroma without much coffee. This is the signature of Asian White Coffee, something you must expect when drinking it. 

Presentation-wise, the coffee has the appearance of a regular latte. The only difference may be that the foam is not as refined as a regular latte. It also does not have that crema and milk color layer. Instead, everything is rather uniform in color.

As I sip the coffee in, it tastes just like it smells. The coffee is very creamy, rich, and sweet. The foam on the top of the coffee helps add some air and lightness, making it a more enjoyable cup to sip.  

The large, bubbly form also helps to give some texture to the coffee, sort of like how champagne bubbles pop around for a bit in the mouth when you drink it. 

So far, everything is consistent with a regular cup of white coffee until a small twist comes in – the salted caramel. 

It definitely adds a bit of uniqueness to the coffee. First, the sweetness has a bit of burnt quality to it, thanks to the use of caramel sugar. 

There is also a bit of saltiness to the coffee, which also makes the taste quite unique in a cup of coffee. This may be odd to you since tasting a savory cup of coffee with some salt in it may be quite rare. But give it a try and see for yourself.

Cold

I emptied a sachet of the white coffee powder into my protein powder shaker for the cold cup, then shook it for about 20-30 seconds with 180 ml of cold water. Then, I poured the coffee into a glass filled with ice. 

The idea here is to prevent dilution of taste. If I made the coffee hot, only to add ice to it later, I would have diluted the drink and altered the taste too.

When drunk cold, the low temperature helps to take away some of the drink’s richness, creaminess, and sweetness. 

I like to call this the Coca-Cola effect, where the drink is much less sweet when enjoyed cold than warm. 

The cold version of the Old Town Caramel Salted White Coffee is much more refreshing. It may be much more enjoyable as an afternoon coffee. I will save the hot ones for a morning cup with my favorite breakfasts. 

Old Town Caramel Salted White Coffee vs Other Old Town White Coffees

I decided to pitch the Old Town Caramel Salted White Coffee with the other Old Town White Coffee I have in my collection. They are: 

  • Old Town White Coffee Classic
  • Old Town White Coffee 30% Less Sugar
  • Old Town White Hazelnut Flavored

I made a cup of coffee similarly with each, with 180ml of hot water. I then sipped the Salted Caramel coffee one after the other.

If I had to choose between these three, I would pick the Hazelnut White Coffee. I just enjoy the Hazelnut twist to the coffee, giving it a better flavor. It also has this Kahlua-like flavor that I really enjoy.

The others are quite fine and may work well if you prefer something simpler and natural. After all, the hazelnut and salted caramel flavors are added artificially to the coffee.

Is Old Town Caramel Salted White Coffee For You?

Here is my straightforward answer: if you like your coffee very creamy, sweet, and indulgent, you need to try the Old Town Caramel Salted White Coffee

This is one of the creamiest and richest coffees I have ever tried. With a slight savory twist, this coffee is one indulgent coffee.

Use it to start your morning, especially if you feel like starting your day with something soft and creamy and if Latte is expensive and boring. 

I can also see this working for lazy weekend mornings or as an afternoon drink with savory bites, like a meat pie or BLT sandwich.

However, as you enjoy and indulge in it, pay attention to this coffee’s calorie count. I don’t think it is friendly to waist watchers.

A quick check at the packaging shows that a cup of this coffee loads you with 155 kcal of calories. It’s not as bad as the White coffee with Hazelnut with 163 kcal.

However, you will be surprised with how much 155 kcal is when you compare it with something you are perhaps more familiar with, the Starbucks Cafe-Au-Lait with whole milk.If you order that drink in Tall-size with 3.6 grams of sugar, the whole drink comes with only 64 kcal of calories. That is less than half of what a cup of Old Town Caramel Salted White Coffee gives you.

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