What is instant coffee?

Instant coffee solids (also called soluble coffee, coffee crystals, coffee powder, or powdered coffee) is the dried soluble portion of roasted coffee, which can be presented to the consumer in either powder or granule form for immediate make-up in hot water.

The coffee beans are roasted to taste and then finely ground into an almost powder-like form. Then, they’re stripped of their water content through brewing, leaving behind an extract.

The dehydration process leads into a scientific drying process, to put it mildly, usually conducted by freezing or spraying with liquid coffee concentrate in a very hot environment or by the more sophisticated methods include agglomeration and aromatization which result in a final product which is readily soluble and has an odor and flavor more nearly that of freshly ground coffee.

The technical procedures of freeze-drying for instant coffee include: baking coffee bean, extraction, concentration of extracted liquid, freezing concentrated solution, sublimation drying, desorption drying, smash, and package. This results in crystallized coffee grounds.

Soluble coffee, which is now universally accepted as a ready means of making a most acceptable beverage. One cup of instant coffee, containing one teaspoon of powder, may contain 30–90 mg of caffeine, while one cup of regular (filter) coffee contains 70–140 mg.

Due to the dehydration process, instant coffee simply doesn’t retain the same amount of caffeine as ground coffee does.
What is instant coffee?

Updated version

Early history of soluble coffee

Early history of instant coffee or soluble coffee started as far as 1771, the British granted a patent for a ‘coffee compound’ and in the late nineteenth century R. Patterson & Son of Glasgow invented Camp Coffee, a liquid essence.

The history of instant coffee in United States is linked to wars; military commanders had long sought a way to give their troops in the field a caffeine boost without having to carry along cumbersome brewing equipment.

American attempts to create instant coffee began during the mid-1800s, when one of the earliest instant coffees was offered in cake form to Civil War troops.

Although it and other early instant coffees tasted even worse than regular coffee of the epoch, the incentive of convenience proved strong, and efforts to manufacture a palatable instant brew continued.

An Belgium immigrant named George Washington produced the first commercially viable instant coffee in the United States beginning in 1906.

Instant coffee received further boost during World War 1, when the US army purchased it for some of its troops in Europe.

The expansion was largely due to a Swiss company, Nestle, which started marketing Nescafe in 1938 and quickly dominated the market. By the 1960s, as much as one third of home prepared was soluble.

Finally, after using U.S. troops as testers during World War II, an American coffee manufacturer (Maxwell House) began marketing the first successful instant coffee in 1950.
Early history of soluble coffee

Preparation of soluble coffee

Preparation of soluble coffee
Instant soluble coffee is the answer to many of the demands of modern life where a minimum of time is left for food preparation.

In Chicago in 1899, Sartori Kato of Japan perfected a method that produced coffee extracts through evaporation of brewed coffee, while preventing boiling which destroys the aroma.

By law the limit on the rate of extraction is one-third; on other words, one kilogram of soluble coffee must be obtained from at least three kilograms of roasted coffee.

The principle of industrial processing of instant coffee is fairly simple.

A liquid concentrate of coffee prepared with hot water is pulverized very finely n a stream, of hot, dry air.

This procedure is called the spray process. The coffee can be reconstituted by adding water to the anhydrous coffee power.

The techniques are divided into two main procedures: percolation and dehydration
Preparation of soluble coffee

Instant Coffee*

Instant Coffee
A considerable amount of information about coffee volatiles has been obtained by detailed studies of the various stages of manufacture of instant or soluble coffee.

Soluble coffee, which is now universally accepted as a ready means of making a most acceptable beverage, is made by extracting the ground roasted beans with hot water and then removing this water either by spray drying or by the more sophisticated methods include agglomeration and aromatization which result in a final product which is readily soluble and has an odor and flavor more nearly that of freshly ground coffee.
Instant Coffee

Updated version: https://beverage-coffee.blogspot.com/2022/07/what-is-instant-coffee.html