Instant coffee · 3 min readL'OR Intense Refill review
Dark roasted, well liked, and sold in a paper refill pouch that saves packaging rather than money. At 8p a cup it is one of the dearer jars we track.
The refill saves packaging, not money. That is worth saying first, because the pouch format implies a saving the price per serving does not deliver: at 8p a cup this sits above the instant median while Gold Blend and Kenco Rich sit below it. What you get instead is a medium-dark roast that buyers rate highly for being bold without being bitter, in packaging L'OR say uses 97% less material than their glass jar. Buy it for the roast or for the packaging. Do not buy it expecting it to be cheap.
A bold, medium-dark instant in a low-packaging paper refill, priced above the instant median at 8p a cup.
- Tastes
- Bold, medium-dark, roasted with a zesty edge
- Strength
- Strong
- Best for
- Strong black coffee
- Valuecup price vs the format median
- 2/5
- Easy to likefrom the roast profile
- 3/5
- Good for beginnersblend, roast and pack size
- 2/5
Buy it ifYou want an intense, roast-forward instant and are not choosing on price.
Skip it ifYou assumed a refill pouch would be cheaper per cup, because this one is not.
Live prices, sizes and retailers for this coffee sit on its product page. This review is the analysis alongside it. See prices →
The refill is about packaging, not price
L'OR sell this as a paper refill designed to top up a jar you already own, and they claim it uses 97% less packaging material per gram of coffee than their 150g glass jar and lid. That claim is about material, and it is the honest way to read the product. What the refill does not do is lower the cost per cup: at 8p a serving this is dearer than every other instant on this page except Percol.
Refill formats across the grocery aisle usually carry a small discount for the packaging you are not buying. At the prices we track, this one does not, so the environmental case has to carry the purchase on its own. That is a perfectly reasonable thing to buy on. It is just not the same thing as value.
| Roast | Dark (5 of 5), sold as medium-dark |
|---|---|
| Beans | Not stated by L'OR for this blend |
| Origins | Central and South American and Asian beans |
| Pack | 125g paper refill, home recyclable |
| Cost | £0.08 per 2g serving |
A note on how the servings are counted
L'OR suggest a 1.6g serving and quote 78 cups from the 125g pouch. We price every instant coffee on a 2g serving, which is a rounded teaspoon and closer to what most people actually use, and on that basis the pouch makes about 62 cups. Neither figure is wrong. They are different doses, and comparing a manufacturer's cup count against somebody else's cup price is exactly the mistake that makes instant coffee hard to shop for.
Any per-cup price is only as honest as the dose behind it. Halve the dose and you halve the price, which is why ours is stated on every page. The dose behind every figure we publish
The coffee itself
L'OR describe Intense as a medium-dark roast with a bold but balanced taste, and the refill copy calls it an intense roasted flavour with a touch of zest beneath. They attribute the character to Central and South American and Asian beans. The jars in this line are sold as freeze-dried, which is the better process for holding onto aroma.
Two things L'OR do not tell you, and we are not going to guess at either. They publish no bean species for Intense, which is notable because they do name arabica on their milder Classique. And their own listing for this refill describes it as a blend of finely ground roast coffee and instant coffee, wording that does not appear on the jar version, so the refill may not be a straight repack. If either matters to you, read the pouch before you commit.
Against Alta Rica, the obvious rival
Both are at the dark end of the roast scale, and Alta Rica costs 7p a serving against this pouch's 8p. Alta Rica is also declared 100% arabica with a stated Latin American origin and is unambiguously freeze-dried, where this refill leaves both questions open. On the things a buyer can actually check, Alta Rica has the better of it.
The refill wins on packaging, and it wins for anyone who has settled on the L'OR house style, which buyers rate highly: bold and full-bodied without the bitterness that usually comes with a dark instant. Those are real reasons. They are just narrower than the price gap implies.
Who should skip it
Anyone buying on price, anyone new to instant, and anyone drinking it milky. At 8p a cup against a 6p alternative you are spending roughly £15 a year more at two cups a day. That is not much in absolute terms, but it is a third more on a format whose entire appeal is that it is cheap. Spend it deliberately or not at all.
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