Coffee, tea and cocoa are known as the world's three major beverages, and coffee and tea have now become the two most popular types of beverages in the world.

Many Chinese people may have known the foreign drink "coffee" from the advertisement of "Nestle Coffee". Nestle Coffee entered China in 1988 and has become a synonym for the entire Chinese coffee brand in the advertising circle. Nestle Coffee is "instant coffee".

Many Chinese people do not understand the meaning of instant coffee. They just think that coffee is an imported product. In the early 1990s, it was a very popular and fashionable thing. At that time, if you wanted to give a gift, you must choose "Nestle Coffee" to show that it is "high-end".

As coffee becomes more refined, more and more coffee shops are labelled as hand-brewed coffee, premium coffee, freshly roasted coffee, etc. While people are accepting black coffee and premium coffee, they are also becoming more aware of the pros and cons of instant coffee. Is it healthy? Is it carcinogenic? More and more doubts are beginning to fill the market. However, according to an analysis report by the "First Financial Business Data Center" , instant coffee still accounted for 84% of the Chinese coffee market in 2018.

To analyze whether instant coffee is healthy, we need to know some cool facts about instant coffee:

01 The Origin of Instant Coffee

As early as 1890, New Zealander David Strang invented instant coffee technology and applied for a patent. Later, George Washington invented the technology for mass production of instant coffee and launched it on the market in 1910.

In 1938, in order to cope with the problem of coffee bean surplus, the Brazilian government and Nestlé jointly improved the production technology, especially adding an equal amount of soluble carbohydrates before drying to improve the flavor. Nestlé thus became the leading brand in the instant coffee industry.

In the 1980s, Maxwell House and Nestle Coffee entered the Chinese market one after another. The instant coffee of the two giants brought the first coffee enlightenment to China.

The production process of instant coffee mainly includes the following parts:

• Pretreatment: Removing impurities from coffee raw materials
• Roasting: The substances in the coffee beans undergo complex physical and chemical reactions to form unique coffee aroma substances.
• Grinding: Grinding the cooked beans into powder
• Extraction: Extracting the soluble ingredients in coffee into water under certain temperature and pressure
• Concentration & Drying: Forming process to obtain instant coffee powder

Looking at this production method, it can be said to be a major innovative invention, which greatly simplified the previously complicated coffee brewing process, making coffee quickly popular as a simple and accessible beverage, and directly led to the world's first wave of coffee craze.

02 Two major methods of making instant coffee

In the process of instant coffee processing, the drying method is the forming process of instant coffee powder, and it is also the process that has the greatest impact on the quality of coffee powder during the processing. The following introduces the similarities and differences between the two drying methods:

Spray Dryer (SD) : Spray drying is the most widely used drying method in industrial production.

Advantages: high efficiency, low cost

Disadvantages: There will be a great loss in aroma

Freeze Dryer (FD)

Advantages: The drying process is carried out under low temperature and high vacuum environment, and the heat-sensitive aromatic substances are retained, so its aroma and taste are relatively pure. This drying method can better preserve the original flavor of coffee and has become the main technology leading the new wave of instant coffee.

03 What’s the difference between instant coffee and coffee?

Friends who have some knowledge of coffee must know that coffee beans are generally divided into two categories: Arabica and Robusta. Robusta beans are generally used to make instant coffee. This kind of beans has become the preferred coffee bean raw material for instant coffee because of its strong ability to resist pests and diseases, high single-plant yield and high caffeine content.

However, during production, these beans are generally not roasted enough and remain at a relatively early stage, unable to fully bring out their aroma.

Finally, when using high-temperature steam extraction, most of the aromatic substances in the coffee disappear. Most manufacturers add flavors during the extraction , concentration or drying process to make up for the lost aroma.

Therefore, instant coffee is roughly equivalent to artificially extracted bitter spices. The nutrients of natural coffee beans are basically destroyed, and there is no natural aroma and mellow taste.

Hydrogenated vegetable oils and trans fatty acids

Pure instant black coffee is still "okay" in terms of product quality. What is really unhealthy is the most popular "three-in-one" coffee.

These three-in-one coffees all have a substance added to them - "non-dairy creamer".

The hydrogenated vegetable oil in non-dairy creamer is intended to reduce the unsaturation of the vegetable oil so that it can remain solid and facilitate production and processing. However, due to the high temperature and high pressure conditions required during production, a large part of the unhydrogenated vegetable oil is converted from its natural cis structure to a trans structure and becomes trans fatty acids.

The dangers of trans fatty acids include:

1. The inhibitory effect on growth and development can easily cause the fetus and children to suffer from essential fatty acid deficiency.
2. It can induce cardiovascular diseases, increase the level of low-density lipoprotein in the blood and reduce the level of high-density lipoprotein.
3. It can easily cause fat accumulation and lead to obesity.
4. It induces the expression of oncogenes and leads to the occurrence of cancer.

Among these, the harm to cardiovascular system is particularly great. People who consume trans fatty acids are more likely to suffer from heart diseases such as coronary heart disease or obesity than the general population.

04 Is there any healthy instant coffee?

First of all, if you have the conditions or time, I suggest that you drink freshly ground coffee beans. This is the healthiest way. But if you don’t have the time and energy to make a cup of coffee every day, then you can choose the popular boutique instant coffee as your main source of coffee.

Premium instant coffee is a new type of instant coffee that has become popular in recent years. This type of coffee is made using the "freeze-drying" method mentioned above. This method no longer uses high-temperature extraction, but uses low temperature to remove moisture. This can better preserve the aroma of the coffee itself, and there is no need to add spices.

In addition, most of the current boutique instant coffee uses Arabica beans as raw materials. Compared with Robusta, Arabica has better quality, better aroma and flavor, and lower caffeine content, making it easier for people to accept black coffee.

The more famous boutique instant coffees on the market include: Davidoff, Maxim, UCC and Nestle Gold, etc.

If you are not used to drinking black coffee, you can add fresh milk, milk powder, etc. to drink more delicious and healthier milk coffee.

Therefore, for the sake of health, friends who like to drink coffee should give up three-in-one instant coffee and choose healthier freshly ground coffee or boutique instant coffee!

If you are interested in coffee, please follow the WeChat public account: [Pure Flavor Boutique Coffee]