Instant coffee · 4 min readilly Decaf Instant coffee review
100% arabica decaf in a 95g tin, at 17p a cup. That is roughly two and a half times what instant coffee normally costs, and the review has to earn that rather than excuse it.
Seventeen pence a serving. That figure is the whole review, because instant coffee is the format people buy precisely because it is cheap, and this is the most expensive instant on the site by a distance. What you get for it is a 100% arabica decaffeinated coffee from a roaster with a genuine reputation, in a 95g tin, medium roasted. Whether that is worth two and a half times the going rate depends entirely on how much decaf you drink and how much the alternatives disappoint you.
A 100% arabica decaf from a serious roaster, at 17p a cup: the dearest instant we track, and a deliberate indulgence rather than a value buy.
- Tastes
- Smooth, medium roast, 100% arabica
- Strength
- Medium
- Best for
- Occasional premium decaf
- Valuecup price vs the format median
- 1/5
- Easy to likefrom the roast profile
- 4/5
- Good for beginnersblend, roast and pack size
- 3/5
Buy it ifYou drink decaf occasionally and want the cup to be worth having rather than merely caffeine-free.
Skip it ifYou drink decaf daily. At 17p a cup the annual gap against Kenco Decaff is around £40.
Live prices, sizes and retailers for this coffee sit on its product page. This review is the analysis alongside it. See prices →
What illy actually sell here
A decaffeinated instant coffee made from 100% arabica beans, medium roasted, in a 95g tin. illy list it as Decaffeinato, one of three instant coffees in their UK range alongside Classico and Intenso, all sold in the same 95g tin at the same price. Their own description of the range is short: great coffee in an instant, thanks to cold processing using the most advanced technologies.
That is close to the full extent of what illy publish about this product, and the gaps matter enough to have their own section below.
| Beans | 100% arabica |
|---|---|
| Caffeine | Decaffeinated |
| Roast | Medium (3 of 5) |
| Origin | Blend, no countries published |
| Tin | 95g, about 47 servings |
| Cost | £0.17 per 2g serving |
The price, stated plainly
At 17p a serving this is not slightly dearer than other instant coffee. It is about two and a half times the about 7p a cup that our instant catalogue clusters around, and nearly three times what Kenco charge for a freeze-dried decaf. A 95g tin is also small: it holds around 47 servings, so a daily drinker will finish it in about six weeks.
| Coffee | Per cup | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| illy Decaf Instant | £0.17 | £62 |
| Kenco Decaff | £0.06 | £22 |
| Instant median | £0.07 | £26 |
Forty pounds a year is the honest size of the decision at one cup a day, and about £80 at two. That is not a trivial sum and it is not a ruinous one. It is roughly what a decent hand grinder costs, which is a useful way to think about whether this is where you want the money to go.
What illy do not publish about the decaf
Three things, and all three are the sort of detail that would normally justify a premium. illy do not state on their UK product pages whether the decaf is freeze-dried or spray-dried. They do not state whether it carries the small percentage of microground roasted coffee that appears in the ingredient declaration for their standard Classico instant. And they do not publish the decaffeination method anywhere we could find, so whether this is a water process, a CO2 process or a solvent process is simply unknown.
Some retailer listings describe the decaf as freeze-dried and as containing microground decaffeinated coffee. Those are retailer descriptions rather than illy statements, and we could not confirm them against illy's own material, so they are recorded here as unverified rather than presented as specification.
For a coffee at this price the absence of a published decaffeination method is a fair criticism. Roasters charging a premium for decaf usually name the process, because for a lot of buyers it is the reason they are paying more in the first place.
When paying 17p a cup makes sense
When you drink decaf rarely. The arithmetic that makes this look extravagant assumes a daily habit, and it stops biting the moment the habit is occasional. If decaf is the thing you have twice a week after dinner, a 95g tin lasts months and the difference against a supermarket jar is a few pounds a year rather than forty.
It also makes sense if the cheaper decafs have actually disappointed you, which is a common enough experience to take seriously. Decaffeination strips out aromatic compounds before the coffee is ever brewed and dried, so decaf has further to fall than caffeinated coffee does, and the bottom of the decaf market is genuinely thin. A 100% arabica decaf from a roaster whose reputation rests on bean selection is a reasonable place to go looking for a better one.
- Occasional drinking, where the per-cup premium never compounds into real money.
- You have already tried the 6p decafs and found them hollow.
- You drink it black, where a better decaf is actually detectable.
Kenco Decaff does the same job for 6p
This is the comparison that decides it for most people. Kenco Decaff is freeze-dried, which is stated plainly in its ingredient declaration, and it costs 6p a serving in a jar twice the size. On the one technical fact a buyer can actually verify, Kenco publish theirs and illy do not.
| illy Decaf Instant | Kenco Decaff | |
|---|---|---|
| Beans | 100% arabica | Not stated |
| Process | Not published | Freeze-dried |
| Decaf method | Not published | Not published |
| Pack | 95g tin | 200g jar |
| Cost | £0.17 per serving | £0.06 per serving |
illy win on stated bean quality and on the reputation behind it. Kenco win on process transparency, on pack size and, by a distance, on price. If you are buying one decaf to keep in the cupboard and drink without thinking, that is a straightforward argument for Kenco.
Who should skip it
Daily decaf drinkers, on cost. Anyone who wants the decaffeination method disclosed, because it is not. And anyone drinking it heavily sweetened or very milky, where the arabica quality that constitutes the entire premium is comprehensively covered up before it reaches you.
Judge it against other instant coffee, which is the only fair test and the one this site applies. Against that field it is a good decaf at an uncomfortable price, and the honest recommendation is narrow: buy it if you drink decaf occasionally and want the cup to be worth something. Buy Kenco if you drink it every day.