Why Instant Coffee Is Underrated

Instant coffee has a bad reputation, but the truth is it doesn’t deserve all the hate. Instant coffee saves you time, saves money on fancy equipment, and can taste just as good as any other type of coffee. Don’t believe us? Just see what Blue Bottle Coffee’s senior director for global innovation and quality, Ben Brewer, has to say.

Both instant coffee and regular coffee start with whole coffee beans. From there, the beans are roasted, ground, and brewed for instant coffee. After that, the water is removed, leaving dehydrated crystals or soluble coffee behind. According to Brewer, "By taking a gentle approach to extraction by using milder temperatures and pressure, [as well as] treating the coffee more delicately and as purely as possible, the quality of the output improved exponentially."

When made correctly, a cup of instant coffee should look indistinguishable from a cup of regular coffee. It should also have the same caffeine levels. In terms of taste, that all depends on the quality of the beans, and the roast and extraction processes. Brewer says it's important to "treat the coffee as gently as possible to maintain its pure flavor and aroma. We developed a specific roasting process that takes our learnings from 20 years of small craft roasting and brings it to our soluble production. We then extract a similar ratio to our cafe espresso, which results in a stronger and better-tasting cup."