Barista-Tested: The NoNormal Coffee Review Report

Meet Clotaire Mandel aka, Le Pedalistan. A professional barista who doesn't mess around with bad beans. Most people pack light when they’re biking across South America, but not him. He actually carries a manual grinder, a digital scale, and an Aeropress in his panniers.

He’s a coffee purist. To be honest, I was a bit nervous to send him our tubes. I knew if it tasted like "standard" instant coffee, he’d hate it. We told him to take NoNormal through the highlands of Bolivia and Chile and give us the truth.

He didn't just test it once; he put it through the wringer at 4,000 meters. Here is the unedited field report.

LP: Let's get this out of the way right now: the idea isn't to replace a good cup of specialty coffee, but to look at it from a different angle. I always carry my scale, my Aeropress, and my grinder. I wanted to find a middle ground—something easy, quick, and effective."

The Stats:

• Coffee: 100% Colombian Arabica.

• Origin: Made in Switzerland.

• Packaging: 100% recyclable aluminum.

• Yield: 20-30 cups per tube.

LP: I’ve drunk instant coffee before. Usually, I only buy the high-quality stuff from top roasters. Most of it is expensive, and I’ve only really enjoyed it once.

But this coffee-in-a-tube is a different beast. It’s cheaper, tastes better, and is made with higher-quality products. Unlike basic instant coffee, it is Arabica, not the awful Robusta.

There is much more aromatic richness in this tube than in just about any instant coffee I’ve tried. Instant coffee has a particular bitterness that lingers. With NoNormal, I find a slight, pronounced acidity that is very welcome. None of that bitterness that is almost sickening.

LP: The tube of black coffee works out to around 60 cents per cup. The sweet version is about 80 cents.

Compare that to the reality of the road. In Bolivia or Peru, bad coffee in a roadside restaurant is rarely less than a Euro. In Argentina or Chile, you’ll pay 3 Euros for a very bad cup.

Specialty coffee aside, NoNormal is better in 99% of cases than what you find on the road. Plus, it’s designed to be drunk outside, quickly and efficiently.

It’s not just coffee. It’s coffee paste. I used it in my oatmeal in the morning to add flavor. Or on bread to make myself coffee toast.

Some friends would say it borders on addiction. Whatever I admit it, I loved getting my fingers covered in it and literally eating coffee.

You have to be quite careful when using it. Otherwise, you’ll end up like me with torn corners and coffee spilled everywhere. This has more to do with my somewhat chaotic way of opening things, but I’ve seen people do it right. I saw they just released a little tool to roll the tube up. It’s not a must, except for people like me.

I love that he caught the altitude benefit. Most people don't realize that. To clarify why he experienced that "aromatic richness," here is the tech behind our tubes:

• The "Wet" Process: We never dry our coffee out like instant brands do. This keeps the natural oils and flavors suspended in the paste.

• Zero-Headspace: Our aluminum tubes keep oxygen out. Every time you open a jar of instant coffee, it degrades. Our last cup is as fresh as the first.