Talk:Instant coffee

Dave Kovacs

Who's Dave Kovacs and why does it matter if he inhales coffee grounds? Chuck Norris' brother — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.188.186.92 (talk) 16:33, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Price

Should it be noted that over the past few years, instant coffee now cost more than ground coffee? Doesn't matter what brand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.122.193 (talk) 04:26, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

A sophisticated Beverage???

The best coffee is that which you brew yourself from roasted coffee beans which you get the coffee vendor outlet, for example, the supermarket, to grind for you according to your specified size of the ground particle.

When you get your ground coffee already grounded up, you run the risk of buying not pure coffee but adulterated coffee, i.e., the roasted coffee beans have other kinds of seeds or beans whatever, even roasted maize, added to the coffee beans.

That goes also with instant coffee powder, it could have been made from grounded coffee beans with an extender added, so it is not pure coffee. Pachomius2000 (talk) 08:47, 21 August 2017 (UTC)Pachomius2000

Where exactly in the world is instant coffee considered 'a sophisticated beverage?' I suspect it is held with contempt just about everywhere except on a hiking trail or mountain top where there isn't any alternative.

This entire paragraph badly needs citation or a rewrite; in particular the statement "Due to the fact that it was the norm in American homes until the 1980s, some areas of the world see it as a particularly sophisticated beverage[citation needed]." is remarkably arrogant , and seems to be somewhat spurious original research. The following again is basically original research if not backed up with citation: "This may possibly be due to a society's appeal to novelty. In countries where it is popular, it is often referred to as "Café Puro" (English: pure coffee), much to the horror of those aficionados who dislike instant coffee."

I'll be removing/rewriting this soon unless it's cited or tidied up first. — Estarriol ^talk 20:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

When I read the "due to the fact that it was the norm in american homes..." I also thought it was arrogant and that it makes no sense. Unless it is properly cited, the statement should be removed.--Reefpicker 17:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldnt describe it as "sophisticated" although I do not view it with contempt - it is good for general use, but if I wanted a quality cup of coffee I would bring out the real thing. 130.246.132.26 16:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Good to the Last Drop? or is it?

wast up and hi Is maxwell house coffee considered instant coffee, or just bad coffee?--4.237.23.16 18:11, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

"Furthermore, some coffee drinkers object to its taste" -> Does one need a citation that proves that instant coffee tastes bad? i find that rather amusing :)

Instant coffee, like real coffee, tastes different depending on how it's made, which is to say in this case, the manufacturer. There are good instant coffees and bad ones, just as there are good coffees and bad ones. By far the worst coffee I've ever tasted came from a hotel, which used coffee beans but apparently did not wash their coffee maker out very well, if ever. That, at least, is one problem you won't have with instant. --69.140.177.7 01:25, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Benefits and risks?

Lately I've been drinking a lot of instant coffee and I was wondering if it has the same benefits and risks as regular coffee. I did a little research but I haven't been able to find anything definitive.

Specifically, does instant have similar (if any) levels of antioxidants? And, generally are the benefits the same? I know antioxidants break down rapidly but I don't know if they could 'survive' the drying process.

Conversely, does it contain higher levels of cafestol? I know normal (perc pot) percolation can contain higher levels cafestol than single pass filtration, and I was wondering if the industrial percolation could create even higher concentrations of cafestol. I'm not really worried about the low levels in normal percolated coffee. If the cafestol levels in instant coffee are in the same range as those found in pressed, steamed, and/or boiled coffee, then I might switch to fresh coffee.

Otherwise, the article text looks good but it needs more information that's on par with or at least addresses the same topics covered in the normal coffee section.

Forgot to sign in before that last edit- apologies! Boldymumbles

Taste and quality of source products

Yup, I too think that instant coffee tastes worse than "classic" coffee. However, upon paying this problem a little bit of thought, this might be simply the case because the source products (the coffee beans) are of lower quality. While I have no evidence for this, I still noted that coffee beans of higher quality are treated with more care (high quality coffee reaches the customer in the form of beans and is ground just before the coffee is prepared, while "standard quality" coffee typically reaches the customer already ground. The consistent quality of "standard" coffee is achieved by mixing different batches and types of beans in varying ratios, eliminating changes in quality over the seasons and the years, but also disallowing to achive the topmost quality (this is also common practise with other products; the goal is not highest, but consistent quality)).

Does anyone know of a manufacturer which uses the same coffee source products for both instant and "classic" coffee, or of any tests which have been done with identical source products? --Klaws 10:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The Kenco adverts claim that they use the same beans for their instant coffee as their ground coffee. 130.246.132.26 16:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

citation for shelf life

http://www.slashfood.com/2006/03/30/spring-cleaning-shelf-life-of-common-pantry-items/ says the shelf life is 1 year unopened and 3 months opened...Of course, they mention those are only "suggested" and one should follow the shelf/expiration on the package. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S0101-20611998000100006&lng=es&nrm=iso also has a formula available...but that looks complicated hehe. --70.157.222.46 21:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Most coffee drinkers object to its taste

Oh so? Who says? I don't "object" to most tastes; granted, instant coffee might be considered lower quality, but that screams OPINION to me. kaiti-sicle 07:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree, definitely a POV. I prefer proper coffee to instant coffee by a factor of 100, but I certainly wouldn't try to claim that most coffee drinkers object to its taste... otherwise there wouldn't be a market for it! Some people I know actually PREFER instant coffee, because then they can make it with BOILING water (despite my cries of horror and recitation of "coffee boiled is coffee spoiled"). Probably comes from living in a cold country where a tepid barrista coffee often won't do. I would also suggest (although this is "original research") that more instant coffee is drunk in many parts of the world than ground or beans.

Adam —Preceding unsigned comment added by 20.133.0.15 (talk) 12:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree too, this comment is POV and demonstrates the preferences of the author. It needs editing straight away. I'll do it if you want. Spuddy345 18:59, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

"Object" is POV, but it's pretty fair to say that most coffee drinkers prefer brewed coffee over instant, of course that would require a citation. Does anyone have any information on what percentage of the coffee market is instant coffee? When I go to the grocery store, most of the coffee is either whole beans or ground coffee, and there is just one small shelf for instant. It seems that home drip coffee makers have, by making it easier to make coffee, have taken back some of the market from instant coffee, and it would be interesting to see how the market for instant coffee has changed over time. --RLent (talk) 19:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I really think the word "taste" should appear *somewhere* in the article! --SC

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Kato

Some places in the web (do google) suggest that Kato invented it in 1881 and not in 1901. Any way to find the correct year? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.171.92.111 (talk) 09:57, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Starbucks New Process - VIA Instant

There seems to be very little information on the new VIA instant product being launched by Starbucks - can anybody provide further information on whether this is truly a new production process or just slick marketing - don't really want to add a section or link if it's just marketing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.155.80.1 (talk) 14:19, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a combination of instant coffee and "microground" coffee. While the instant coffee is coffee that has already been brewed and then dried to a powder, the microground coffee is liquid soluble and has not yet been brewed like standard instant coffee has. Kiwisoup (talk) 04:47, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Decaf

Is there any reason why there is a bit about decaffination in this article. It doesn't have anything to do with the instant coffee process or product. There is also a perfectly good article on decaffination of any coffee. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.81.196.8 (talk) 23:00, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree, there's already an article on Decaf and this article duplicates a good deal of the info. I'm going to cut the section. oknazevad (talk) 19:58, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

It says "commercial processes the decaffeination of instant coffee almost always happens". This is not true. But this is wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.43.186.25 (talk) 09:14, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Acrylamide

I have checked the source claiming that instant coffee has higher acrylamide, however, the source only said there were two instant coffee products that contained high acrylamide, not all of them. Maybe switch to another source or remove this?--UnknownC (talk) 08:12, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Could you please tell me the source here on Talk Page? Also any other sources are welcome. Then we can all think which sources are reliable enough to put in Main Article.

ee1518 (talk) 07:21, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Examples of popular instant coffee brands are.....

What is the purpose of this sentence in the very beginning except for advertising? Vagr7 (talk) 09:06, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Reverted edit that removed section "Non-food use"

Some anonymous coward posting from a bare IP address removed the section "Non-food use" re: photo development, claiming "blatant advertisement". Advertisement for what? There's no commercially available product called Caffenol; it's a tongue-in-cheek name that was made up as a joke on commercially-available developers, many of which end in -ol (e.g. Dektol, metol, etc.) Nothing is being advertised here. If you (anonymous coward) have a problem with this, post your name and we'll have a discussion about it, but simply deleting a useful and referenced section from the article with no explanation or justification is not acceptable.Shalom S. (talk) 16:12, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Patent numbers

The patent numbers given for the French invention of instant coffee, while nice, clog up the article and would be better displayed in a post article note section. 31173x (talk) 15:59, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Incomplete

The Regulation section says

In the EU, regulations include the following details:

* Species of coffee bean

* Geographical origin

* Processing detail

* Year of crop

* Solvents used in decaffeination

* Caffeine level

Where is that information displayed?.Moriori (talk) 20:19, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Mix?

In other countries, such as South Korea, instant coffee commonly comes pre-mixed
Mixed coffee, often called "3-in-1" being common in so many countries (e.g. Thailand, Philippines) that there is no point in arbitrarily choosing one (South Korea). Should this be removed?
Gentleman wiki (talk) 20:14, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Alphonse Allais

I'm genuinely curious as to whether we've been hoaxed for a couple of years when it comes to who can claim to be the inventor for instant coffee. Alphonse Allais is a French humorist and writer — he hasn't been credited for any other real inventions or patents, but he did have a newspaper column where he proposed absurd inventions. In fact there's a museum of them in France.

"The Alphonse Allais Museum, also called Le Petit Musée, in Honfleur, claiming to be the smallest museum in France (8 m2), consists of a small collection of "rarities", including the skull of Voltaire at age seventeen and a true piece of a False Cross (cf. True Cross), as well as inventions such as a special Chinese teacup made for left-handed people" — quoting from his Wikipage

Another researcher came out with similar conclusions.

"It is also claimed that he invented some sort of instant coffee and was awarded a patent in 1881. Below is a very hard to decipher image of a French patent numbered #141,530 (not 141520 as is reported ad nauseum on various coffee lists) that is claimed to be authentic. I have not found independent verification of a patent of this number, nor any image of a French patent of this era to compare it to. Allais’ father was a pharmacist and Allais himself had some scientific training, so it is possible. However, after a search of spectacular proportions, I am not convinced that this wasn’t an elaborate practical joke. In spite of this, I may have become a fan of his work." — https://procaffeination.com/the-invention-of-instant-coffee-who-what-where-and-how/

There's multiple quite strong sources for the claim that David Strang had invented coffee in New Zealand, so I've restored that as the primary evidenced claim. Someone needs to find some stronger sources for this French person, or otherwise it smells like a hoax. Donkeypeep (talk) 05:10, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

I've just been trying to find better evidence as to who was the inventor and have been a little confused. I then saw the above comment and it does make sense. I remember a few years ago in a wikipedia article there was a long standing English translation of a Latin name for an extinct dog. The English name sounded a little odd and my Latin was good enough to know the translation was wrong. It turned out to have been put there unknown by a normal editor's teenage son a few year's earlier. Whatever, this instant coffee inventor should be given proper secondary sources. Currently the sources used are primary or low grade secondary. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 07:07, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

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Percentage of coffee made into instant

The article as of now says that 50% of world coffee production is used for instant. This is based on a single 2009 academic paper that states this baldly, without context or source. This seems unlikely, and not a reliable source for this point. I have used AI (2 AIs), which give a much lower figure, with details of how it is derived. This does not seem to be hallucinated. Here is one of the results, from Perplexity, with my apologies for long-windedness:

what percentage of ther world's coffee crop is made into instant coffee. a 2009 reference in wikipedia says 50%, but this seems unreliable. wanted is the percentage of green coffee used as instant, not comparison of the instant coffee market with the total coffee market.

The “about 50% of green coffee goes into instant” line you saw on Wikipedia is not supported by current industry data and appears to be a long‑standing myth or misinterpretation. The best available evidence points to a much smaller share: roughly 10–15% of global green coffee is used to make instant (soluble) coffee, not 50%.[1][2][3][4][5] What the data actually say

1. Trade-based estimates (ICO / USDA methodology)

Industry bodies such as the International Coffee Organization (ICO) and USDA convert traded soluble coffee back to a green-bean equivalent using a standard yield factor of about 2.5–2.6 kg green beans per 1 kg soluble coffee.[5][6][7]
Using those conversions and ICO trade/consumption statistics:

• Soluble (instant) coffee accounts for about 12% of world coffee consumption by volume (in green-bean equivalent terms).[2][1]
• In trade data, soluble coffee represents around 13–14% of exports in green-bean equivalent, with green beans themselves making up ~86% of exported coffee by form.[3][4]
  

These figures are explicitly about how much of the coffee crop (in green-bean terms) ends up as instant, not about the retail value or market size of instant vs. roasted.

2. Production/yield perspective

Instant coffee manufacturers typically report that:

• About 2.5 tonnes of green coffee are needed to produce 1 tonne of soluble coffee.[5]
• Given total global green coffee production of ~11 million tonnes and global soluble output on the order of 1–1.5 million tonnes (in product weight), the implied green-bean share again lands in the low teens percent, not 50%.[8][9][5]

3. Why the “50%” claim is misleading

The “50%” figure likely comes from one or more of these confusions:

• Mixing up instant’s share of certain markets (e.g., very high instant penetration in the UK, Japan, Russia) with the global crop share.[1][2]
• Confusing instant’s share of coffee products in some datasets with the share of green beans used.
• Repeating an old, unsourced claim that has propagated through secondary sources (including older Wikipedia edits) without primary data.[10][11][12]

No major contemporary source (ICO, USDA, FAO, or industry analyses) supports a 50% share of green coffee going into instant.

Bottom line

Based on current industry statistics and standard conversion factors:

• Approximately 10–15% of the world’s green coffee crop is used to produce instant coffee.[4][2][3][1][5]
• The oft-quoted “50%” figure is not consistent with modern trade and production data and should be treated as unreliable.
  

If you’d like, I can sketch a quick back‑of‑the‑envelope calculation using the latest ICO production and soluble trade numbers to show the exact percentage for a specific crop year.

    1. https://commodities101.morgandowney.com/commodities/coffee
    2. https://commodities101.morgandowney.com/commodities/robusta-coffee
    3. https://coffeefarmanalytics.com/articles/where-does-the-worlds-coffee-go-beverages-industrial-uses-and-coffee-by-products/
    4. https://www.ico.org/documents/cy2025-26/cmr-0226-e.pdf
    5. https://www.olamgroup.com/content/dam/olamgroup/files/uploads/IRfiles/Olam_Insight_June_v6_HR_NOCROPS-1.pdf
    6. https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/circulars/coffee.pdf
    7. https://www.fas.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2024-06/coffee.pdf
    8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee
    9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_coffee
    10. https://esmis.nal.usda.gov/sites/default/release-files/m900nt40f/wd377g27h/bk129x03v/coffee.pdf
    11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_coffee
    12. https://www.cnet.com/culture/internet/everything-you-need-to-know-about-instant-coffee/
    13. https://dab.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/HRS-486-120.6.pdf
    14. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4984699/
    15. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772502226007250
    16. https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/commodity-profile-coffee/index.html
    17. https://www.nestleprofessional.com/sites/default/files/2023-02/po-production.pdf
    18. https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/instant-coffee-market
    19. https://driftaway.coffee/instant/
    20. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/899311468167958765/pdf/283000REVISED0Coffee1Markets01PUBLIC1.pdf
    21. https://ico.org/what-we-do/world-coffee-statistics-database/
    22. https://www.fao.org/markets-and-trade/commodities-overview/beverages/coffee/en
    23. http://www.niftem-t.ac.in/pmfme/cpowdercurmet.pdf
    24. https://www.gcrmag.com/buencafe-is-raising-the-bar-in-the-soluble-arabica-market/
    25. https://www.devex-gmbh.de/en/products/instant-coffee

The search: from www page perplexity.ai/search/e4a22010-b816-4963-b309-77c1dbcbbef8
Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 10:06, 22 August 2026 (UTC)