Why You Should Care About Instant Coffee

I'm sure many will roll their eyes at the mere thought of this subject matter, but I implore you to watch the video the whole way through before commenting!

Excited for a lively discussion in the comments and hope roasteries, manufacturers, and the coffee community at large will take part.

LINKS TO PAPERS:

Sebastian Humbert, "Life cycle assessment of spray dried soluble coffee and comparison with alternatives" 2009

H.A. Hassard, "Product carbon footprint and energy analysis of alternative coffee products in Japan" 2009.

Piya Gosalvitr, "An environmental and economic sustainability assessment of coffee production in the UK" 2023
--Should be noted this one assumes instant with a 250g glass jar as well as more green making up a dose, which are odd assumptions to make that elevate greatly the number shown for instant. A big appeal to instant is, in fact, the high extraction needing *less* green.

Here’s how your cup of coffee contributes to climate change
--This presents the research from the following article in a more digestible way.

Andrea L. Hicks, "Environmental Implications of Consumer Convenience: Coffee as a Case Study" 2017

Here is a link to Swift:

Black and White:

Luminous:

Leuchtfeuer:

The Barn:

Others named that are now closed: Sudden Coffee, Voila Coffee

LINKS
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TIME CUES:

0:00- Overview
0:50- Hot Spray Evaporation
3:37- Freeze Dry Sublimation
6:54- Sustainability and Specialty
10:05- New Turn?
11:40- Blind Taste Test
16:49- An Instant Future?

[LanceHedrick]

Excited to see the discussion this video will facilitate! While I won't be switching to instant anytime soon, and am not encouraging anyone to do so, I think with the market share instant has, it is an important and valid area that needs to be considered heavily. Since we, the coffee community, seem to have a big voice that can and does drive trends in the market (looking at you Timemore grinders and Meticulous), I think we can shift some focus on instant.
Oh! Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe if you haven't ;) Cheers!

[erikaairmusic]

I’ve preferred instant over brewed for quite some time now. It was really born out of necessity. When I got sober I moved away from home to somewhere I wasn’t familiar and had absolutely no money and food stamps. I was starting over. Now, better off than then, I still prefer the instant. 😊


Have a good day everyone.
PS: For those of you who are curious… I will be sober for 8 years this July.

[BenMcGaghey]

Hello from Hasty Coffee in Canada! It's great to see people talking about specialty instant again. We've been making it in Canada for a bunch of different roasters over the last 4 years. It's been a wild ride scaling the product but I can't imagine a world without it now.

[sam_musey]

Actually, a big shoutout to Lance, who finds time and energy to hangout in the comments to engage with us, witty commentators...😌

[PhilippeCarphin]

As a coffee aficionado, I think good instant coffee is pretty decent.

While I was visiting my mom and her husband at their summer home, my step dad who knew I was somewhat of a coffee aficionado was kind of apologetic that all he had was instant coffee. He was making breakfast for everyone and I'm not fussy but he still said something to the effect of "sorry all I have is instant coffee". I was surprised by how good it was and since then I've had a can of instant coffee in my office at work.

While nowhere near as good as espresso made with freshly ground medium-light roast beans, it's still good.

My take is this: if you don't judge it by how well it reproduces the taste of freshly brewed coffee, you can appreciate its flavor as a completely different beverage that also happens to be made with coffee.

At work we have an automatic espresso machine but the coffee is so darkly roasted that I prefer my Nestlé taster's choice instant coffee most of the time.

Now I just ordered a hand grinder for the office and I'll be making french press coffee and later pour over once I settle on what pour-over equipment I want to buy.

[texarkana]

My roommate used to add a layer of Nescafe in the middle of the puck in a Bialetti moka pot. He called it "fortifying" . You'd b shocked by the amount of "crema" that came out! Tasted pretty good in a generous hot milk drink and definately woke you up!

[PhillipLangenkamp]

I love this! I'm really hopeful that there is an increased demand (and a responding improvement in availability, options, and quality) for decaf coffee and instant coffee. Not every cup you drink needs to be a fully caffeinated 11/10 experience. The small sacrifices of quality can be made up through the benefits of other elements (such as speed and portability for instant coffee or the ability to drink a late evening coffee or espresso and still be able to fall asleep for decaf coffee).

If demand improves, the options and quality will improve. If options and quality improves, the demand will improve. I'm here for the positive feedback loop!

[gasmoneyindustry]

Yes. I was a barista for about 20 years. Over the past 3 years I basically drink instant with powdered vanilla flavoring. Early 2000’s me would definitely be side eyeing me hard now days.

[tasmaniandoc]

I couldn't be more excited about this topic. My local roasters just finished setting up the sublimator this spring and the result is impressive: easy to make and the flavor of the cup is great. I can now recommend the introduction to delicious black coffee to my coworkers without any equipment costs. Thank you for highlighting this technological process.

[Randomperson]

Lance if you put in ROOM TEMP water into the instant coffee and fully dissolve it and only then add hot water, it reduces bitterness vs following their recipe to add hot water straight to the instant coffee.

[primitive_data]

I love how you dive into so many different areas of coffee lore. Always learn something new. Keep up the good work 💪🏻

[SymonTU]

I recently wrote a review for my industrial coffee production course. I learned that the solubility of industrial instant coffee comes from a process called foaming. This process involves injecting the evaporated concentrate with dry air or an inert gas. This creates more surface area and lots of pores as it dries, making it easier for water to penetrate the dry granule. This is in contrast to specialty fine dense powder

[jasonlinn]

I love specialty instant for when I'm backpacking in the wilderness. Nothing better than waking up with a scenic view and a genuinely good cup.

[naomi]

My father drank tasters choice original when I was young and the aroma of it is very nostalgic to me. If I were to pick one up (because I had to) it would be this one.

[georgeatte]

I drank instant coffee before getting to know specialty. After getting into specialty I learned that the most important thing for me to know was that the coffee is ethically sourced and the farmers are getting their fair share. If these specialty roasters get into making a better instant coffee than what's available today, I will definitely go back to it. I love the ritual of making hand brewed coffee, but I will love the convenience of pouring hot water and getting my coffee in seconds more

[nimexwolf]

It's unreal that you come out with this today... I just picked up instant coffee within the last few months and just re-upped it yesterday because I realized how great it is!

You're on the money with this one, instant coffee is going to be popping off in the future! My big fear, however, is that we start seeing companies step in to create "instant coffee pods". That would be incredibly wasteful and I hope we do NOT see those pop up.

[Boyetto-san]

Very interesting point you make about the big-picture implications. I think the way that we can intellectually adjust to the concept of specialty instant is really that it's not there to outright replace what we coffee nerds and spcialty cafes already do. It's there so that everyone else, the majority of people, who don't wanna faff about with equipment and technique can just have a higher median coffee experience, and thus familiarize themselves with the specialty coffee flavor spectrum, where those people would otherwise just go through life thinking that coffee is just supposed to taste like burnt charcoal water that you make palatable using sugar and non-dairy creamer. That, in the end, is where the third wave is still really incomplete: in convincing more people that properly good coffee is supposed to taste different, and that that's a good thing.

[deyesed]

I've been espousing this for a couple years now. By removing the water and using airtight containers, the delicate VOCs are preserved quite well. It's delicious when reconstituted correctly (i.e. dissolved first in cold water).

[PassportDates]

I was shopping for instant coffee and somehow found this instead. I moved to Turkey and here we are having this more than any other coffee. Thanks for this video!

[veganpotterthevegan]

Definitely loving my Swift instant. There is an unexplainable note every origin/blend has that I've never gotten from any other coffee. But it's definitely good. It's definitely more than good enough to be my traveling coffee. Massive convenience with being in fully compostable packaging, nothing extra to clean/carry when I used to always have a hand grinder and French press