My husband and I bought this for a camping trip because we like cream, real cream in our coffee, I had tried powdered milk, but I may as well be adding water to my coffee, and so we looked in to buying some powdered cream and this was the best deal that we could find. I really like that the ingredients are just freeze dried cream, nothing more. I was a little bit weary of the taste, I thought it might taste weird, being it is dried, so I gave it a few different test to see how it fared.
I first tried it with instant coffee, and it had a weird taste to it, and I was not impressed with the flavor of the cream, it tasted like cooked cream essentially, and I was very underwhelmed. Then, I tried it with real coffee, fresh brewed, and I had quite a different experience, it taste just like normal cream, maybe not really fresh cream, but it was perfect. I had it 3 days in a row like that, and it was perfect every time. I went back home and tried it with instant coffee again just to see what it would be like, and the answer is that it was definitely the instant coffee, it was the same as the first time I tried it. If you use this with an instant coffee, use it with a high quality one, mine was not, and it effected the flavor of the cream.
As others have stated, it works best for mixing if you initially mix it in a small amount of liquid(preferably hot) before incorporating with your whole batch of anything.
You don't need to make a paste, but about 4 parts water to 1 part cream should be good for mixing initially.
I will definitely be ordering this again for use while traveling with my coffee, I am very impressed with it, and I plan on trying some of this companies other stuff as well, I am excited to do so, I hope they are as good as this cream.
God Bless ~Amy