Does anyone drink instant coffee anymore?

BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 156 points –

For some reason I think of it as an older concept. Now Starbucks and coffee chains are popular.

Seinfeld on instant coffee https://youtu.be/uDrh5pujB9I?si=VdlVEREjMTNd2Bs7

Highlighting carlcook's advice:

dissolve in cold water, ONLY THEN add hot water. The rationale behind it is that aromatics evaporate too quickly when the instant powder is infused with too/boiling hot water.

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I do. Almost always. And there are three main reasons for it.

(A) Hassle free prep. Hot water and stirrer, bam!

(B) No waste/by-products (e.g. filter, brewed coffee granules residue, blah blah) - so much less carbon footprint.

(C) A cup of instant coffee has slightly less caffeine content than the same cup of freshly brewed coffee. Good for me, because I have been a caffeine-addict, and trying to cut down now.

So I always try to go for Freeze-dried instant coffee ( especially Colombian, like Juan Valdez ), and not the Spray-dried shit.

Edit : I thank max and the OP for enlightening me about the instant coffee manufacture process. It surely appear that Instant coffee has a lot more environmental impact than simple ground coffee because of more processes involved. I have always consumed instant coffee, but were totally ignorant on this part. Dumb of me.

Thanks to the people directing me to the right way, and I will strike out my second point above.

so much less carbon footprint.

Bad news for you.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1385894723015243

Instant coffee has >2 times higher impacts and costs than ground coffee.

Based on the functional unit of 1 tonne of coffee produced, instant coffee has higher impacts and costs than ground coffee for both system boundaries because it requires double the amount of green coffee beans and 7–11 times more energy.

Really bad news, and so ignorant of me. Thanks for the enlightenment btw !

There is waste and byproduct, just not in your kitchen. Look into the manufacturing process. There are still beans that are roasted, ground, brewed and discarded.

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(B) No waste/by-products (e.g. filter, brewed coffee granules residue, blah blah) - so much less carbon footprint.

Not sure how you come to this conclusion. The waste is the same (if not more), just ends up somewhere else. Also, you're adding a whole extra process (freeze drying) requiring extra energy, and water needs to be boiled twice (during brewing and at home).

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