Korean Coffee Pouches for a Majlis, Iftar or Office Gathering

Count on one pouch per guest for a short visit and closer to two for a long evening. For a majlis of twelve, a 10-pack outer plus a few singles covers the room and leaves something in reserve. An iftar table where coffee comes after the meal usually needs fewer than you expect, because the first round of drinks is water and juice. An office gathering runs the other way: people take one on arrival and another before they leave. Above roughly twenty-five people, a full carton is simpler to carry in than five loose outers. Put out a mix of flavours rather than betting on one. The Original Iced Hazelnut Coffee is the safest thing to hand somebody who has not tried the range before, because its nutty, lightly sweet character reads as familiar straight away.

For the guests who take their coffee plain, put out the Original Iced Black Coffee. It is the direct one in the range, a straight roasted-coffee taste with nothing layered over it, and it suits a table where the dessert has already done the sweet work.

Keep a few of the Iced Caramel Macchiato Coffee back for anyone who treats coffee as part of the dessert course. It is the sweetest of the three and tastes closer to a cafe order, which makes it a good closing pour after a heavy meal. The Iced Sweet Americano sits between the black and the caramel if you want a fourth option on the tray.

Buying an outer of each flavour rather than thirty of one is the difference between guests choosing and guests being handed something. It also means the leftovers are worth keeping, because whatever is still sealed at the end of the night is a flavour somebody in the house will drink.

Bring the pouches out in a bowl of ice rather than one at a time from the fridge, so the tray keeps working while you are busy elsewhere. Glasses are optional. At a majlis most people drink straight from the pouch; at a sit-down iftar table it looks better poured over ice into a short glass. Keep a small bin near the tray for empties, because a sealed pouch is tidy on a table and an opened one is not. If you are carrying a pack to someone else's home, move it in an insulated bag, since a pouch that arrives warm has to sit in an unfamiliar fridge for an hour before anyone can drink it.

Order a few days ahead rather than on the morning itself, particularly in Ramadan when delivery windows fill up. Lotte Cantata is halal and produced under HACCP food-safety procedures, and a certificate of analysis is available on request if you are buying for a company event that needs documentation on file. Seoul Oasis delivers free anywhere in the UAE on orders above AED 300, and you can pay online at checkout or by bank transfer. For an office order, a bank transfer against an invoice is usually the easier route.