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A brief history of instant coffee

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Re: A brief history of instant coffee

#31

Post by vient »

gib444 wrote: post #26

> which is why spray drying remains the dominant method I don't think I've ever seen spray-dried. Even the cheap supermarket instant coffee is mostly freeze-dried in the UK I believe. You can really see the power of marketing at play in instant coffee. A lot of 'premium' branded instant coffee is ~£42/kg. That's £3/kg more than my premium, locally-roasted, single-estate Colombian coffee beans. If you have more money…

> A lot of 'premium' branded instant coffee is ~£42/kg. That's £3/kg more than my premium, locally-roasted, single-estate Colombian coffee beans.

You need 7-10 times less instant coffee to make a cup though, so your beans are a lot more expensive in the end. From my experience, cup of coffee is either 2 grams of Nescafe Gold or 16 grams of beans.

Re: A brief history of instant coffee

#32

Post by kccqzy »

maxbond wrote: post #10
firefax wrote: post #3

it's never instant because boiling water takes sooooo longgggg. apparently uk teakettles are faster due to voltage differences? i want to look for a usb-c solution sometime

The good news is that boiling water is not functionally necessary since the extraction was done up front. I drink it cold or with warm water. Boiling is hotter than I want to drink anyway. If there's significant scale at the bottom it's possible it's making your kettle materially less efficient. If you put in like a cup of vinegar and a cup of water (you could probably dilute it more than that), heat it up and swish…

Indeed. I have a Nespresso machine for when I need coffee quickly. As soon as I press the button, hot water flows in a trickle. It’s certainly not boiling but it’s an ideal temperature as a hot drink.

Re: A brief history of instant coffee

#33

Post by Jtsummers »

gib444 wrote: post #26

> which is why spray drying remains the dominant method I don't think I've ever seen spray-dried. Even the cheap supermarket instant coffee is mostly freeze-dried in the UK I believe. You can really see the power of marketing at play in instant coffee. A lot of 'premium' branded instant coffee is ~£42/kg. That's £3/kg more than my premium, locally-roasted, single-estate Colombian coffee beans. If you have more money…

> A lot of 'premium' branded instant coffee is ~£42/kg. That's £3/kg more than my premium, locally-roasted, single-estate Colombian coffee beans.

That weight comparison doesn't make sense. How many cups of coffee do you get from your beans versus the instant? I just checked the jar I have here for my lazy weekends, it's ~2g per cup of coffee (rounding up, it's a bit under 200g and it makes about 100 cups). So a kg of instant would be around 500 cups of coffee. I don't think your 1kg of beans will produce that many cups.

Re: A brief history of instant coffee

#34

Post by miguel_martin »

It's unfortunate that instant coffee has such as a bad reputation in the US. In Australia, instant coffee is very common (in the household); it's pretty good.

I would much prefer a cup of instant coffee to most coffee that is served at diners, brunch/lunch restaurants, etc. in the US. I prefer espresso still, but there's a lot of burnt tasting coffee in America.

Re: A brief history of instant coffee

#35

Post by ssl-3 »

gib444 wrote: post #26

> which is why spray drying remains the dominant method I don't think I've ever seen spray-dried. Even the cheap supermarket instant coffee is mostly freeze-dried in the UK I believe. You can really see the power of marketing at play in instant coffee. A lot of 'premium' branded instant coffee is ~£42/kg. That's £3/kg more than my premium, locally-roasted, single-estate Colombian coffee beans. If you have more money…

In terms of the volume of the final beverage, 1kg of instant coffee goes a lot further than 1kg of whole bean coffee does.

I don't measure coffee by weight when making the stuff (I use the eyebolic method with the coffee grinder, and the equally-imprecise heaping spoonful method with instant), but some homework suggests that it takes ~60g of whole bean coffee, or ~9g of instant coffee, to produce 1 liter of beverage.

If a coffee cup holds 300ml (as the normal US-centric one I picked from my cabinet does), then when we use your prices we get:

~£0.702 per cup from premium, locally-roasted, single-estate Columbia coffee beans

~£0.1134 per cup from 'premium' instant coffee.

...which makes instant a whole heckuva lot less expensive to drink. :)

Re: A brief history of instant coffee

#36

Post by Error9632 »

vient wrote: post #31
gib444 wrote: post #26

> which is why spray drying remains the dominant method I don't think I've ever seen spray-dried. Even the cheap supermarket instant coffee is mostly freeze-dried in the UK I believe. You can really see the power of marketing at play in instant coffee. A lot of 'premium' branded instant coffee is ~£42/kg. That's £3/kg more than my premium, locally-roasted, single-estate Colombian coffee beans. If you have more money…

> A lot of 'premium' branded instant coffee is ~£42/kg. That's £3/kg more than my premium, locally-roasted, single-estate Colombian coffee beans. You need 7-10 times less instant coffee to make a cup though, so your beans are a lot more expensive in the end. From my experience, cup of coffee is either 2 grams of Nescafe Gold or 16 grams of beans.

The 7-10 times seems quite off. It’s pretty close to 5 times assuming common extraction yields about 20%. So instead of brewing 16g of coffee you could dissolve 3.2g of instant.

Re: A brief history of instant coffee

#37

Post by Error9632 »

ghthor wrote: post #21
firefax wrote: post #3

it's never instant because boiling water takes sooooo longgggg. apparently uk teakettles are faster due to voltage differences? i want to look for a usb-c solution sometime

If you’re brewing from ground you really don’t want boiling 212F water as you’ll burn the grounds. I do my pour over at 185F and get smooth ready to drink hot coffee with no/low acidity.

If you (for some reason) want low-acidity coffee, it’s better to just get a darker roast (if you can stand the taste defects).

Ideal brewing temperature depends on a lot of factors but even ultralight roasts don’t require anything near boiling.

Re: A brief history of instant coffee

#38

Post by odux »

miguel_martin wrote: post #34

It's unfortunate that instant coffee has such as a bad reputation in the US. In Australia, instant coffee is very common (in the household); it's pretty good. I would much prefer a cup of instant coffee to most coffee that is served at diners, brunch/lunch restaurants, etc. in the US. I prefer espresso still, but there's a lot of burnt tasting coffee in America.

In Australia all coffee is pretty good. I visited Sydney fora week a couple years ago for business and the lattes and espressos blew my mind. I have had good coffee but that is a whole different level. After I have always been picky about coffee (mostly espresso drinks) and now I am even more pickier thanks to the amazing coffee I had there.

Re: A brief history of instant coffee

#39

Post by [deleted] »

bigfatkitten wrote: post #14
jemmyw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For real instant: install a hot water tap. It has a small boiler under the sink that keeps the water at near boiling. I've got one and it's great - instant tea any time.

I considered this when I rebuilt my kitchen last year but the price was obscene - starting at $1600 AUD installed. I bought one of these for $79 instead and I’ve been perfectly happy with it. https://www.kmart.com.au/product/digital-hot-water-dispenser...

[deleted]

Re: A brief history of instant coffee

#40

Post by rootusrootus »

bombcar wrote: post #19
softbuilder wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twice the voltage == half the amperage for the same wattage. Are UK kettles higher wattage?

US circuits are about 15 amps; UK ones similar - but twice the volts. So a US kettle is about 1500 watts, a UK one 3000. You can get commercial water boilers in the US if you need.

or just use an insta-hot tap which is infinitely faster than an electric kettle. or a plain old kettle on an induction cooktop which will also be faster than a single purpose electric kettle.
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