About Waka Coffee
Waka Coffee uses a unique freeze-drying process to create its exotic selection of instant coffee and teas. Made from 100% Arabica coffee beans and high-grade tea leaves, the brand has a sterling reputation among all types of coffee drinkers, prized for its better-than-coffee-shop taste and ultra-convenient brewing method.
If you’re a big-time coffee fan and have your doubts, just take it from the editors at Martha Stewart Living who said the convenient brew is a must-have for your camping supply. Not into the food and decor legend? Waka has also been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Delish, and a bundle of other notable media outlets.
If you still can’t grasp this brand’s popularity, maybe the brand’s 25 different awards for Best Instant Coffee will help, or its growing 21K followers on Instagram.
Caught your attention and ready to find out more? Keep reading this Waka Coffee review. Here, we’ll provide all the perky details about the brand and its best-selling brews, fill you in on customer feedback, information on promotions, and more to help you decide if it’s worth all the buzz.
Overview of Waka Coffee
Instant coffee tends to have a bad reputation. Bland, chalky, flat…the fast-making beverage has always been loved for its convenience, but never so much for its taste.
With such a seemingly simple idea, quality definitely has to count. And it’s the quality that has brought Waka Coffee so much attention since its inception in 2018. The brand was founded by David Kovalevski in California after he had an epiphany about fast, affordable, and tasty coffee.
As a self-proclaimed coffee fanatic, David used to drink 3 cups a day just to keep up with his studies and full-time job during college. The main issues with that sort of pace? Buying from a coffee shop wasn’t in his budget, and making a cup at home just didn’t meet any coffeehouse standards.
His solution? A high-quality instant coffee that tastes like a slow-drip but takes just two steps to make. Coming up, this Waka Coffee review will divulge all the delicious details about the brand’s convenient brews, but right below, you’ll find a quick summary of the brand’s highlights:
Highlights
- Offers a simple, delicious selection of coffee and tea
- 100% Arabica beans
- Quick to make, mess-free, and easy to clean-up
- Auto-ship program with savings (Free shipping in the US only)
- Free shipping on orders over $30
- Ships to the US & Canada
- Eco-friendly packaging (if local centers accept it)
- Donates a percentage of profits for clean water projects around the world
Waka makes light and medium roast brews, offering caffeinated and non-caffeinated varieties of its tasty instant coffee, along with a simple selection of high-quality instant teas.
All of the brand’s fast-making beverages can be bought as part of an ongoing subscription that gives you 10% off every order. Ready to get into all the rich details? They’re all coming up in this Waka Coffee review, so sit back, grab your favorite brew, and let’s dive in.
Waka Coffee Instant Coffee Review
Waka’s beans come from Colombia, India, and Kenya, giving it the full authentic tastes of coffee in those regions. To make any of Waka’s brews, simply boil some water and stir in one packet of powder.
You’ll find features of the brand’s best-selling instant, single-serve coffees up next in this Waka Coffee review.
Waka Coffee Medium Roast Colombian Single-Serve Instant Coffee 8 Servings Review
What you’re getting with Waka Coffee Medium Roast Colombian Single Serve Instant Coffee 8 Servings: 100% arabica coffee beans from Colombia, smooth flavor, a rich sip, and delectable scent.
What you’re not getting: bitterness, a sandy texture, or a burnt taste. Take this pack of 8 with you wherever you’re headed for $12.
Waka Coffee Light Roast Indian Single-Serve Instant Coffee 8 Servings Review
With flavors authentic to the country, this Light Roast Indian Single-Serve Instant Coffee 8 Servings provides an inviting sip to your morning ritual.
Blending well with cream and a dash of cinnamon, this intriguing brew is incredibly versatile and smooth, with notes of chocolate and caramel goodness. Indulge your taste buds in a trip through Asia without waiting in line with an 8 pack for $12.
Waka Coffee Medium Roast Colombian Decaffeinated Single-Serve Instant Coffee 8 Servings Review
Caffeine isn’t for everyone, so thankfully, there’s decaf. We know what you’re thinking. Instant + Decaf = boring and tasteless, but in this case, that’s so not true.
The Medium Roast Colombian Decaffeinated Single-Serve Instant Coffee 8 Servings uses the “sugar cane EA decaffeination process” to extract the buzzy stuff, leaving you with all the flavor.
This method uses ethyl alcohol made from Colombian sugar cane to rid this tasty brew of caffeine but not leave a weird aftertaste behind like other decafs tend to do. Grab an 8-serving pouch for $12.
Waka Coffee Instant Tea Review
More of a tea lover? No problem. With its fine selection of Kenyan, Chinese, and Japanese tea, this Waka Coffee review will showcase its best-selling single-origin and blends packed with genuine flavors and honest, simple ingredients.
Waka Coffee Kenyan Black Instant Tea 4.5 oz Bag Review
Black tea has a more robust flavor and can mix well with milk and caramel-like brown sugar. This blend is made with only 100% single-origin Kenyan black tea leaves that have been ground into a powder and packaged in a resealable zippered pouch. You can even use it for some awesome boba milk tea!
Unsweetened and pure, the Kenyan Black Instant Tea 4.5 oz Bag dissolves well with both hot and cold water. Enjoy 225 servings of your new favorite, convenient sip for $15.
Waka Coffee Kenyan & Chinese Green Instant Tea 4.5 oz Bag Review
The difference between regular tea and instant tea is the waste. Instead of having to deal with all unrecyclable tea bags, you’ve got a finely ground powder in the Kenyan & Chinese Green Instant Tea 4.5 oz Bag that can be stirred into your cup of hot or cold water.
Create refreshing iced green tea with honey in the hot summer, or a comforting cup on chilly days. With a 4.5 oz bag, you’ll enjoy 135 servings of this Waka Coffee Instant Tea for just $15 — compare that to your $2 daily tea special at your coffee shop.
Waka Coffee Japanese Instant Matcha 3.5 oz Bag Review
Matcha’s popularity has been on the rise, but its fame definitely goes beyond being just a trendy, tasty drink. This Japanese tea is full of antioxidants, with a hint of clean caffeine that won’t leave you foggy and tired after it wears off.
The Japanese Instant Matcha 3.5 oz Bag contains only 100% single origin high-quality green tea leaves. There’s no sugar or additives — none of that nasty stuff. Just the purity of premium tea.
Japanese Instant Matcha is a fine ground powder, meaning all you need to do is add hot water or steaming milk to create a luxurious, comforting beverage. When you’re done, simply reseal the bag to keep your matcha fresh. Get the 3.5 oz bag for $18.
Who Is Waka Coffee For?
Waka Coffee was designed for those who want a quality cup of coffee but don’t want to go through the hassle of making a slow-drip pot. Eliminating the mess that comes with making a cup of coffee at home, the brand transforms your at-home coffee experience into what it should be: simple and flavorful.
It’s an enticing pick for those who are short on time in the mornings or don’t want to mess around with grinds and wait for a quality cup to pour— or should we say drip. Saving you money too, Waka Coffee cuts down on waste, high prices in coffee shops, and your precious time waiting.
The brand offers both caff and decaf varieties of coffee, but all of its teas are caffeinated. You can find the caffeine content for each variety in the FAQs on Waka’s website.
What Makes Waka Coffee Different Than Other Coffee Brands?
A lot, actually. Waka Coffee tells us that its coffee is grown in Colombia under the CCGC (Colombian Coffee Growers Confederation).
This means its beans are held to a certain high standard, produced in a way where the quality of the bean is protected, and grown in a place of the world that’s known to push out some of the best-tasting beans in the world.
Waka Coffee only uses 100% Arabica coffee beans, but it’s this next process that makes the brand so unique. To get their beans into instant form, they’re freeze-dried, turning them into water-soluble pieces.
It turns out that other brands use high levels of heat to evaporate the liquid from their beans, giving them that burnt coffee taste that instant brews are known for.
Once the beans are ready to be packaged, they’re put into single-serve foil-lined natural kraft paper — the same materials its boxes are made of — and can be recycled. Instead of creating more waste as K-cups can, this paper can live to see another day.
What Is The Freeze-Drying Process?
There are two ways to remove liquid from something: applying heat or freeze-drying. You could also let it dry out naturally, but that would take ages. Freeze-drying protects the flavor of the bean as well as the scent, and below, we’ll outline the entire process so you can understand exactly how Waka Coffee is made.
- Roast, grind, and brew the beans — this creates a coffee extract
- Freeze the liquid at -50° C
- Put the frozen liquid under a vacuum to let it sublimate (a fancy word for a process that basically turns ice to steam without defrosting)
- Et voilà — instant coffee!
Waka Coffee Reviews: What Do Customers Think?
Coffee drinkers are typically divided into two categories: “I’ll drink anything,” or “I care about how my coffee tastes.” If you’re reading this Waka Coffee review, then you probably fall into the latter one. Up until this point, the brand may sound great to you, but, like us, you may be craving to know what its instant brews are really like.
We get it, instant coffee hasn’t exactly knocked anyone off of their kitchen bar stool like, ever — so to see the lengthy list of features and awards this brand has accumulated seems kind of surreal.
In search of the truth, we combed the web for customers who wrote about the matter, and below, you’ll discover exactly what we found out. Let’s start with a few ratings from WakaCoffee.com which boasts over 349 reviews and a overall score of 4.78:
- Japanese Instant Matcha: 4.6/5 stars, 11 reviews
- Kenyan Black Instant Tea: 4.8/5 stars, 24 reviews
- Medium Roast Colombian Decaf: 4.7/5 stars, 12 reviews
- Light Roast Indian Single Serve: 5/5 stars, 12 reviews
- Medium Roast Colombian Single Serve: 4.7/5 stars, 75 reviews
We’ll level with you here, we didn’t exactly know what we’d find in Waka Coffee reviews, but to put it short: customers love it. We looked into the Medium Roast Colombian Single Serve because it’s the brand’s most popular pick and found a mound of feedback that circled around the same opinions.
And what are those? That the coffee tastes clean, is full of flavor, and the best instant brew they’ve ever had. One Waka Coffee review that summed things up read:
“WOW…I was pleasantly surprised when my coffee arrived. I expected less taste but got more. I would definitely recommend this brand, best in my view.”
For the next stop on our journey to knowledge, we turned to a Waka Coffee review on a java blog called Pull and Pour Coffee. The site rated the brand’s brews a 9/10 with scores in the following categories:
- Concept: 9/10
- Coffee Quality: 9/10
- Coffee Flavor: 8.5/10
- Convenience: 10/10
- Sustainability: 9/10
The blogger walked us through their thoughts on a few different varieties, but their Waka Coffee review for the brand’s Light Roast Indian Single Serve went like this:
“The coffee was very approachable and balanced. It was smooth, chocolatey, and creamy. Its flavor profile wasn’t very complex, but it did have some nice caramel sweetness. This was the first coffee I tried of the three and overall it exceeded my expectations.”
For our final dose of feedback, we checked out good ol’ Amazon which hosts almost 1,500 reviews across various products. The online marketplace never lets us down when it comes to honest reviews, so we clicked on Medium Roast Colombian Single Serve and dug into the comments section.
The Waka Coffee Instant Coffee received an overall score of 4.3/5 stars from 176 shoppers that broke down like this:
- 5 stars: 64%
- 4 stars: 15%
- 3 stars: 10%
- 2 stars: 4%
- 1 star: 7%
The comments section is full of the same caliber of feedback we’ve read from every source so far. The consensus? This coffee is the best. One Waka Coffee review stated, “Super easy to brew and tastes better than the coffee shops.”
The truth about some coffee shops is that they don’t care much about the type of coffee they serve. Many are just looking for something cheap that will perk them up, so more often than not, quality isn’t a concern.
Waka Coffee is different. It’s of a quality that shines through, so much so, that customers easily notice it — they immediately taste the difference. From what we’ve learned here, this brand isn’t one to be missed.
Is Waka Coffee Worth It?
Whether you’re an instant-only kinda girl or a stand in line for your triple macchiato kinda guy, Waka Coffee is a good pick to have in your at-home arsenal for late mornings, crazy weather days, and camping trips. Loved and recommended by thousands, at this point, we’d be crazy not to recommend the brand ourselves.
Waka Coffee Promotions & Discounts
When we first landed on the brand’s website we were offered a 20% off discount if we signed up for the newsletter. A pretty sweet deal if you ask us, made only sweeter by the bundle of other ways we found during this Waka Coffee review that the brand helps customers save.
For instance, free shipping if your subscription order totals over $30. Waka’s coffees are so tasty, it’s not all that hard to reach this monthly total to avoid shipping costs. Not to mention the 10% off that subscribers get on every order.
We also have an exclusive discount code HONEST15 that customers can use to get 15% off their first order of coffee or tea.
Where to Buy Waka Coffee
If you’re a single-origin fanatic through and through, head straight to the source to get your instant brews on WakaCoffee.com. To see if a store near you carries this amazing brand, you can check out their store locator tool.
More of a blend-aficionado? Shop select items from the collection on Amazon and Walmart.
FAQ
Who owns Waka Coffee?
Waka was founded by David Kovalevski, who is currently the brand’s CEO and owner.
Is Waka Coffee fair trade or organic?
Waka Coffee is not a fair trade or organic-certified company. The brand does give back though— Waka donates a percentage of its sales to fund clean water initiatives across the world through its Add Water, Give Water program.
Does Waka Coffee ship internationally?
The brand delivers its coffee to all 50 states and to Canada. Subscription orders are only available in the US.
What is Waka Coffee’s Shipping Policy?
Waka Coffee ships out all orders via USPS, and they take about 4-5 business days to arrive at your door if you choose Standard shipping. All shipping options and costs will be calculated at checkout. Any taxes or duties related to international shipping are to be paid by the customer.
What is Waka Coffee’s Return Policy?
Coffee is coffee, and at the beginning and end of the day, it’s a perishable item that can’t be returned. With that said, the brand does take each return request for its coffees and teas on a case by case basis. If there’s something inherently wrong with your order, they will refund your money.
Having second thoughts about non-perishable goods in your Waka Coffee order? You can return them within 30 days for a full refund. To be eligible for a return, the items must meet a few conditions:
- Brand new, unopened condition
- Have all of their original packaging
The return process for either perishable or non-perishable items goes like this:
- Email hello@wakacofee.com with contact information, order number, and return reason.
- Be sure to include a copy of your receipt in your email.
- The Waka Coffee team will let you know where to send your item(s).
How to Contact Waka Coffee
If you need any other information that wasn’t included in this Waka Coffee review, you can get in touch with the brand by using any of the contact methods listed below:
- Contact form
- Email: hello@wakacoffee.com
- Instagram & Facebook: @wakacoffee
If you appreciate good coffee we suggest checking out these unique brands:
