So I'd say look at it like a spectrum. In the cafe world there is - average/ not-so-great drip coffee --> Starbucks --> Speciality/ Third Wave Coffee.

I don't know how VIA makes their product, but if you do a side-by-side taste test with Sudden vs VIA, I 100% guarantee you will notice (and prefer) Sudden. We do in fact use a pretty unique bean selection + brewing process to achieve it.

Re: drying techniques - it really varies brand by brand and when you go to a store shelf in the US, most of the brands you see are spray dried, not freeze dried. In the US, you specifically have to look for brands that say 'freeze dried' and it's usually reserved for the more expensive instant coffees. Spray drying is much cheaper, but yields a lower quality product. Freeze dried coffee is a lot more common outside of the US. Even within freeze drying - we use a smaller batch freeze drying process. I've worked in large scale manufacturing before and with a smaller batch process we are able to achieve much higher quality levels.

Re: beans - most coffee beans bought and sold are bought as a commodity product - think rice, beans, etc. They can literally be years old before being brewed. We have seen lots of these beans and they visibly have mold and insect damage. The beans we use are hand-picked when ripe. Much closer to picking grapes from a vineyard.

I'm not trying to be an asshole, but do you really see this company taking off? You're battling the known perception of instant coffee being awful and trying to sell a super premium product within a group that's tailored to buy cheap coffee because they just don't care. That's just a brutal uphill battle from a consumer education standpoint and a price comparison standpoint.

I get that you're not trying to compare your product, which I'm sure has great quality, to the $8 jar of instant coffee but that's what the general consumer is going to do.

I will openly admit, I hated coffee until I tried a fresh cup from a friend who owns his own small business roasting coffee beans and it was incredible.

I truly hope you do succeed as that'll ideally allow you to run larger production runs to drive down costs to more affordable prices for everyone.

When I was starting to work on Sudden I knew that the biggest challenge would be around the perception of instant coffee. It's a lot of work but we have a pretty solid plan and traction right now!

I think your biggest challenge is going to be to convince people to pay such a premium to save the 10 minutes they would need to make a coffee (of more or less equivalent quality) with a French press. I'm a coffee lover but I am not a coffee snob, so I don't dismiss your product based on it being instant coffee, but £60 a month is enough to cover a new French press every month plus the best beans that my local coffee shop sells and still have enough money left to go to the local café every now and then when too lazy to go out. And that's only if you don't like Nespresso-type coffee, in which case after an initial investment of 50-ish pounds for the basic machine, £60 a month is enough to buy me 150+ cups of coffee a month.

And this is just the price for 32 cups of coffee a month, which is at most 1/5 of my normal consumption.

I wouldn't necessarily view it as something that replaces your French press or every coffee in your life. I'll bet that the majority of the time you make coffee at home, but a few times a week you spend $3-4 on coffee at a nice cafe.

Sudden is the same thing. Continue making coffee at home, but 2-3 times a week if you want something that tastes different or that's easier - go for Sudden. At that rate, spending $5-7 a week is much closer to treating yourself at a cafe.

I'm glad to hear it.

As others have said, if this was at REI or other stories and priced the same or higher I would totally grab some for when I go backpacking.

In any case, I'm truly impressed by your responses in this thread. Most founders don't take criticism in stride and that's, in my opinion, a main difference between those who succeed and don't.

I'll be a subscriber in the near future as I'm going to be traveling quite often the second half of this year and I'd love to avoid drinking Keurig hotel coffee.

Current customer here. I was in a similar position as yourself and subscribed to Sudden in the early days pre-YC. Just wanted to chime in that it's perfect for the frequent travel and hotel use case (as long as you have a source of hot water). I keep a few in my backpack to save myself from K-cups in offices.

Every flight I've been on with Starbucks VIA has been absolute trash. Airplane coffee quite literally tastes like it was made with toilet water. That's honestly the only way I can describe it. I'm bearish on any improvements because I'm convinced the problem is the water they use.

The decrease in air pressure and humidity also have big effects on your sensation of food(smell and taste)

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150112-why-in-flight-food-...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9408563

Apparently the companies making coffee for planes have (de)pressure chambers to conduct tastings.

If that is true, they they are running incredible margins to afford that. A human sized negative pressure chamber is not any easy thing to obtain or maintain, even to airplane climates specs. Most likely, they rent out time on someone else's chamber or just take a chartered flight and test on the plane.

Not true, I took an Aeropress on an international flight and made fresh coffee throughout the flight. It tasted great. The hot stewardesses had no problem letting me use their hot water which was nice.

You're actually arguing that the environment of a plane doesn't have any effect on people's sense of taste because one time you totally liked your cup of coffee on a plane?

You're spot on re: the water quality. An investigation at DFW a few years ago found hazardous levels of e.coli in the potable water tanks used to refill aircraft.

I wonder why the airlines aren't doing anything about this. I'm not a frequent first-class passenger, but if I were, high-quality coffee would be a big deal for me.

Plane water is really nasty. Even Sudden made it will not taste great. You can mix Sudden with cold water by shaking it in a bottle and that's what I usually do when traveling

> I'm not a frequent first-class passenger, but if I were, high-quality coffee would be a big deal for me.

Many transatlantic and transpacific flights now have a proper grind-on-demand coffee machine (allowing for lattes, cappuccinos, etc) in business / first class. Doesn't necessarily solve the water problem, although they can fill them up from bottled (I don't know if they actually do).

Definitely looking to do plane coffee at some point but the water quality remains biggest issue.

I don't think I've ever been on an airplane that served "tap water". It's always been bottled.

drinking water is but hot water for brewing coffee comes from big tanks that get really gross

I make Starbucks VIA instant coffee at home and it's quite good. If I make it at work it's horrible so I'd say water quality is a big factor. At both home and work I used tap water both from the same city source.

For the airplane I wonder if the water isn't getting hot enough due to lower atmospheric pressure. The flight attendant see it boiling so they assume boiling means hot but it may only be 80C not 100C.

I know when I make the Starbucks VIA I make sure the water is boiling well (I live at sea level) and it's really hot otherwise it doesn't work out.

I actually liked Starbucks VIA until I got violently sick off of it once. I'd probably try it again though, it was pretty darn good for instant coffee.

I agree with you here. VIA is not bad - it tastes remarkably similar to what you'd get at a Starbucks. I think it's up to everyone to determine whether that's coffee they like or not