W HAT’S

DESI GNER: TY P E INS IG HT THAT STUF

OR HINDSIGHT A FFTER
? COLOR BA R IN W H IT E

instant coffee
The popular drink’s less popular, HIGHLY PROCESSED relative

COFFEE IS ONE of the world’s favorite a parched powder. The drying towers are Today, most major

K E NNE TH MOORE /C &E N

beverages. It is definitely my liquid of kept at high pressures and temperatures manufacturers still use
choice, with all the invigorating caffeine, near 270 ºC. The fine coffee powder a freeze-drying process to
great taste, and wonderful-smelling volatile may be rewetted to produce larger make their instant coffees,
compounds such as 4-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-2- granules that are dried and finally says Daniel Gedance, president of
butanone, which gives coffee a sweet, fruity packaged. SAAP. Although instant coffee is gener-
aroma. Organic, fair-trade whole-bean In the freeze-drying process, ally viewed as inferior to fresh coffee,
coffee is my preference, but those with less the brewed coffee is first frozen Juliet Morris, sales manager of Just
patience may desire long-lasting, easy-to- and then crushed to obtain the Us! Coffee Roasters Co-op, chooses
prepare “instant” soluble formulations. desired granule size. Standard to stock freeze-dried instant coffee
The Japanese were the first to produce & Alternative Products (SAAP), because the freeze-drying process “most
a stable instant coffee product in the early which produces instant coffee closely allows the fresh-roasted flavor of
1900s. During World War II, instant coffee products, aims for granules of coffee to come through,” she says.
gained fame among American soldiers after about 3 mm in diameter, for But some instant coffee manufactur-
Nestlé marketed its Nescafé brand. example. Granules that are ers do not use the freeze-drying process
The instant beverage was updated in too large or small because of its prohibitive
1963, when Kraft introduced its Maxwell are melted costs, Gedance says. Al-
House freeze-dried instant coffee, which and refroz- though the price of any
the company claimed tastes more similar en. Frozen retail instant
to fresh-brewed coffee than other instant granules of coffee is
coffee products. Within a few years, all ma- the proper deter-
jor manufacturers had freeze-dried coffee size are mined
products on the market. placed in largely
Taste and smell aside, most people drink low-pressure by costs
coffee in all of its incarnations for that drying cham- related
energizing alkaloid compound—caffeine. bers at –50 ºC, to distri-
According to the National Nutrient Data- and the water bution,
base for Standard Reference, instant coffee is removed by freeze-dried
has about two-thirds the caffeine content sublimation instant coffee
of fresh-brewed coffee. More precisely, 8 oz as the drying production costs
of freshly brewed coffee contains 95 mg of chamber warms. are 35% higher than
caffeine, whereas the same amount of in- Both processes the costs of production
stant coffee has only 62 mg of caffeine. run the risk of by spray-drying, he notes.
But the caffeine content of coffee de- losing compounds The freeze-drying process
pends on many factors, including coffee that contribute to is more expensive because
bean species, bean ripeness, and the roast- the desirability of the making the same amount of
ing and brewing processes. Thus, citations drink. For instance, caf- instant coffee by freeze-drying
of caffeine content in different coffee bev- feine sublimates at 180 ºC methods requires larger quanti-
erages are reported with exceedingly wide at atmospheric pressure, so ties of better-quality beans than does
ranges, and the database figures are more a the high temperatures in spray-drying the spray-drying process.
rule of thumb than law. chambers may affect instant coffee’s caf- Susan C. Jackels, a chemistry professor
All instant coffee production involves feine content and the content of organic and coffee researcher at Seattle University,
roasting coffee beans and then brewing compounds that provide taste and aroma. says that beans used for some instant cof-
them in hot water. Before the brew can Whichever process is used, the final prod- fee products could not be sold for use in
be further processed into instant coffee, uct is often packaged under carbon dioxide roasted, ground coffee products. For some
oxygen and insoluble particles such as cof- or nitrogen because the presence of oxygen instant coffees, however, coffee “cherries”
fee grounds must be removed. After this, will cause further loss of aroma and flavor. are stripped from plants at the end of the
the brew is dried by one of two methods to season, whether they are ripe or not. Un-
yield instant coffee. ALL THIS PROCESSING means instant ripe beans add a bitter taste to coffees and
One common way to desiccate the coffee contains little oxygen and has a wa- have a less-well-developed aroma.
brew is through spray-drying: The coffee is ter content of only 1 to 4%—much lower For people on the go, instant coffee
sprayed through a nozzle to produce tiny than microbes need to grow—allowing the might be the best thing since sliced bread.
300-μm-sized droplets that fall through product to stay on the shelf for more than I, however, will stick to grinding my own
drying towers until they reach the base as two years without spoiling. beans.—KENNETH MOORE

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