Why I Drink Instant Coffee

cowboat
March 13, 2024

Ritual

I love coffee. It’s one of my absolute favorite beverages, alongside tea and Coca-Cola.

For me, as with many, coffee is about more than the drink itself, or even the caffeine - it’s about the ritual. It’s how I start my day - an anchor point from which I can prepare to embark upon the adventure ahead. It makes me feel good.

I am also what some would call a coffee snob. I care about the details, because they matter when you are concerned with getting the best possible cup. I’ve traveled the world to find my favorite beans and roasts. I have bought machines for my house ranging from hundreds of dollars to thousands. I enjoy tweaking each and every part of the method to produce the perfect cup, and I get satisfaction in enjoying that cup.

Knowing and appreciating these details caused me to have a low view of instant coffee. A powder to which you just add water - how could that possibly be any good? I even probably secretly judged my friends and coworkers who drank instant coffee (a position shared, I’m sure, by many of my coffee snob peers). Sometime during COVID, though, I decided to run an experiment. I decided to buy a can of instant coffee and drink that everyday until I finished it. What I found astonished me.

Discovery

What I discovered is that instant coffee is not just easy, it’s also good. This might be obvious to some people, but it still surprised me. I expected to feel like I was drinking a crappy cup of coffee, 80% there in terms of taste at best (and probably, I suspected, much worse). But it’s more like 90% at least, and often better. I found that the taste was not just passable, but actually quite enjoyable.

The ease of preparation is of course another selling point. I would wake up and just hit a button on my electric kettle and have a piping hot cup within a couple minutes, no preparation necessary.

The truth is that instant coffee is pretty much the same thing as regular coffee. The difference is in the final preparation steps. Everything up to that point is identical. The beans are the same; the roasting is the same. With regular coffee, the manufacturer stops at that point, puts the beans or grounds in a bag, and sells it to you to prepare as you please. With instant coffee, the coffee is brewed, usually with high pressure and temperature, and then dehydrated to produce a soluble concentrate - just add water to rehydrate and enjoy.

Continued Exploration

When I finished my first can, I did go back to my other preparation methods for a while. Those steps are part of the ritual, after all. But eventually I decided to dive in fully. I bought several different brands of instant coffee and decided to drink them to compare them all. I found several I didn’t like. Some made me think of the crappy cups of coffee I would previously have associated with instant coffee as a whole. But others were really good. They have varied and interesting tastes and profiles, just like their non-instant counterparts. A few I have found are really smooth, and seem even better balanced than the end product of the beans or grounds of the same brands that I make myself. I attribute this to preparation differences, and the fact that the manufacturer can produce the coffee to the exact qualities desired before drying it.

What’s more, I found that the ease of preparation doesn’t diminish the ritual - in some ways, it enhances it. I still get the coffee out; I still pour the water; I still hold the cup close and savor the aroma; I still use my coffee time as a point to pause and reflect before my day commences. But with instant coffee, there is no cleanup. No device to clean or disassemble or put away. All the fun parts without the annoying ones. It’s so easy.

Now, I won’t claim that instant coffee is the absolute highest quality, absolute tastiest product available. That I will leave to your favorite combination of bean, roast, and preparation method. But I do assert that instant coffee is really, really good, and really, really easy. It’s also fairly inexpensive. Those things make it an objectively great product, and it has become my personal favorite kind of coffee (though I still keep my favored machines and beans for special occasions). Plus, finding new brands and ways to tinker with the cup is fun! When I go to the grocery store now, if I see a brand of instant coffee that I haven’t tried yet, I buy it. It’s the little things in life, right?

If you are like I was, and look down upon instant coffee (and those who drink it), I encourage you to give it a try and keep an open mind. ☕️