How did instant coffee come about?

250 million cups of coffee are consumed around the world every day, and humans have been drinking coffee for hundreds of years. Instant coffee was only invented in the early 20th century, so it is a new product in the history of coffee.

Every day, 70 tons of green beans are shipped from South America to an instant coffee factory, and about 560 tons of coffee are stored in the warehouse. The green beans are filtered into a large boiler and roasted at 200 degrees Celsius. The coffee is roasted in a roasting machine, and it is constantly stirred during the process to ensure that the coffee is roasted evenly and not burned. The coffee beans are then moved to a grinder and ground into granules. The ground powder is moved to a large machine to release the coffee substances with steam and pressure. This coffee has become a refreshing drink for many people, and 18,000 liters of coffee can be produced in just one hour.

The coffee is continuously heated until it is concentrated into extract, and then conveyed to the next process - the freezer by a conveyor belt. Here workers must wear thermal clothing to protect them from the polar cold, -50 degrees Celsius. The extract must be frozen in granules to preserve the aroma of the coffee, and the temperature must be at least -40 degrees Celsius. At the end of the 30-meter-long conveyor belt, the extract is separated into fine particles. In this harsh environment, monitors are used to ensure that every link is correct. If workers work too long in this severe cold, they may get frostbite.

The frozen extract granules still retain moisture and this residual moisture must be extracted. The granules are stacked on a tray inside a low-pressure tube for five hours. The difficulty is to remove the moisture from the coffee granules so that they do not liquefy into coffee liquid again. This releases the coffee aroma. The operation principle is as follows: the coffee granules are heated at 60 degrees in a vacuum state. The moisture in the granules evaporates directly under pressure. This is sublimation. When the granules leave the vacuum state, the freeze-drying process is completed. The coffee aroma remains in the granules and can be stored in the granules at room temperature. After the tray is turned over, the granules enter the storage tank for packaging.

It takes less than a second to pack a bottle of instant coffee. The bottle is sealed and transported to the factory gate, where it is labeled. Every week, 420 tons of instant coffee leave this factory. And this amount is just a small part of the 250 million cups of coffee produced every day. Coffee is the most traded food/beverage in the world.