The return of instant coffee

I still remember vividly, as an awkward teenager, coming home from school to an empty house in the afternoon. The first thing I would do was to flick the switch on the kettle and make myself a cup of instant coffee, with milk, sometimes with sugar, usually without, and take a moment to sit down, blow on it to cool it, and drink. It was a daily ritual. That’s what coffee was back then, it was cheap, and was bitter, and it was all we had. A different, maybe simpler time, and that underwhelming, gray-tinged flavor still invokes nostalgic feelings in me when I experience it today.

Fast forward a few decades and my coffee habit has persisted. I drink copious amounts in the morning, but not in the afternoon, or it affects my sleep and while I have over the years, gone to the dark roast side, indulging in the best beans and roasts I can afford, going to the most pretentious café I can find in my area to try new and interesting blends and single origin beans, there is a part of me that still wants the bitter, gradual, watery taste of a cup of instant coffee.

If you have ever travelled to a developing nation, you’ll have noticed that they usually drink instant coffee over the high-brow artisan stuff we get in our local cafes. The people who live in the countries from which the coffee comes from drink the freeze-dried, water soluble coffee that people in the West look down their noses at. But if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us.

The rare times I’m exposed to instant coffee, whether it be traveling in Africa, or say, working on location when the only option is a piping hot pool of black liquid in a Styrofoam cup, I feel like I’ve returned to a more authentic version of myself. If artisan coffee has shrugged the label of the indulgence of an aspirational middle class, instant coffee brings me back to a place and time that was more egalitarian, fairer, and humbler. In a world that is evermore riven by divisions of class, race, of opportunity and privilege, maybe it sounds trite, but a simple, so-called substandard coffee reminds me of where I come from, where we all come from, and even the mass-produced food and beverage experiences that are worth preserving.

Have we reached peak coffee? Sometimes it feels like we’ve gone too far. Coffee as a commodity is virtually unrecognizable from how it was 20 years ago, when artisan roasting and rare coffee beans went mainstream and coffee shops took on the self-regarding appearance of minimalist design showrooms, with baristas who have the empty-eyed enthusiasm of cult members.

Morning coffee, for those who are as dependent as I am, is one of the most important, and pleasurable parts of the day. It’s true that stopping into your favorite café on the way to work to order from your friendly server is a joy to be savored in a world of increasing negativity and stress. It’s the little things that make life worth living. But surely $11 is too much to be spending on coffee every day?

We live in a bubble, and it can seem like the coffee connoisseurs have won the battle, but the data tells a different story. Instant coffee accounts for more than 34% of all retail brewed coffee consumed around the world. As much as 73% of coffee prepared at home around the world is instant. Some estimate that as much as half of all beans grown end up as instant coffee.

Instant coffee was invented at the beginning of the 20th century and went on to become a staple of soldiers fighting in the trenches in WWI. It gave them a much needed boost and allowed them to man their positions through the night. It was also the only coffee available for people at home as coffee was rationed and a rare commodity. The drink’s popularity increased in the post war years and eventually became the primary form of coffee consumption for decades, across most of the world.

There’s no doubt that ‘real’ coffee tastes better than instant, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the granulated form for what it is. There are many examples of rationed or military foods working their way into a national cuisines like spam becoming a delicacy in Hawaii and South Korea. It’s a matter of perspective.

While machine brewed capsule coffee has in recent years usurped instant’s place in home kitchens, there are many people turning back to instant in an effort to curb their impact on the environment. Last year saw a growth of the global instant coffee market to a value of USD 35.97 billion, a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.11% in terms of value and 2.88% in terms of volume. Millennials are a particularly enthusiastic market segment.

These things are cyclical and while high-end, artisan coffee is definitely here to stay, things that go out of fashion usually come back around. Instant coffee is having its moment and is back in a big way, some would say though, with most people keeping a jar of instant hidden in their kitchen cupboard, it never really went away.