Instant coffee remains in a bit of a strange place when it comes to coffee lovers. Some coffee drinkers have instant coffee nearly every day because of the time to brew and ease of availability, and some coffee connoisseurs swear off instant coffee as though it is inferior in every way.
There is a huge range of instant coffee available, making for some validity to each side of the argument, however, the huge range allows for the polarizing nature to be misleading.
How Is Instant Coffee Made?
Instant coffee is actually not all that different from ground coffee. The process of making the coffee for the first part is largely the same, the coffee is picked and roasted in the same way, after which it is ground. At this point, you would find your typical ground coffee in the store. Instant coffee is further refined.
For instant coffee, they take the grinds and proceed to make coffee and remove the none dissolving solids, as you would with a traditional ground coffee. The remaining mixture is then dehydrated, usually by cooking off excess moisture or freeze drying. From there, the coffee is clumped to create the granules that you find in your bottle of instant coffee
What’s The Difference?
So, the ground coffee we enjoy, and instant coffee have their roots in mostly the same places, but yet, they can taste wildly different. There are a few reasons you may notice distinct taste differences between the two.
- Acidity – The processes used to make instant coffee, while impressive, are not perfect. One of the biggest sacrifice instant coffee will make in the flavour department is that of acidity. The exact same coffee beans will generally taste more bitter in instant coffee form, as the ground coffee allows it to preserve a better balance of acidity.
- Aroma – during the initial brew of instant coffee, before the dehydration stages, there is a fair amount of particles lost when it comes to aroma. These aroma particles do influence taste, making instant coffee generally not taste as deep as freshly brewed ground coffee.
- Chicory – From the process, it’s simple to tell that making instant coffee still uses a similar amount of coffee beans. To bring the price of instant coffee down, manufacturers will add in chicory, a ground root which tastes similar and has similar properties to coffee, which still being much cheaper than actual coffee beans
- Fillers – Due to an ever-changing climate and an ever-increasing demand for affordable coffee, some manufacturers have taken to put fillers into their coffees. Fillers can negatively impact the taste of coffee.
Does It Matter?
Ground coffee versus instant coffee at the end of the day is simple a trade-off of convenience. For the same beans, ground coffee will always taste better, but instant coffee will always be cheaper and quicker to make, especially when you want to dive into games at an online casino in Pakistan. There is nothing inherently wrong with instant coffee, but for a treat, proper ground coffee will always be the way to go.