Atreyee Poddar
Instant coffee has a bit of a bad rep. On one hand, snobs dismiss it as “caffeine dust” while the travellers swear it’s the only thing standing between them and a nap on the floor of a train station. But love it or loathe it, instant coffee hides a few surprises that might just change how you see that little jar of brown crystals.
Before you dismiss instant coffee as some soulless modern hack, know this: it’s older than your grandmother’s percolator. The first commercial instant coffee dates back to 1901, invented by Japanese-American chemist Satori Kato in Chicago. Soldiers in both World Wars relied on it as battlefield rocket fuel. Basically, instant coffee marched through history with more grit than we give it credit for.
While hipsters line up for pour-overs in Brooklyn, most of the planet is spooning powder into mugs. In countries like Russia, Turkey, and India, instant coffee outsells brewed coffee by miles. Globally, almost half the coffee consumed is instant. Think about that next time you assume your AeroPress is “the standard.”
Here’s the plot twist: instant coffee sometimes has a lower environmental footprint than brewed. Why? Because it’s made in bulk at industrial scale, using nearly all the beans efficiently. Plus, when you make a cup at home, you use only what you drink—no leftover pots dumped down the sink. Not exactly eco-perfection, but it beats wasting half a French press.
Once synonymous with mediocrity, instant coffee is in the middle of a glow-up. Specialty brands now freeze-dry single-origin beans, keeping more aroma intact. The result? Sachets that taste suspiciously close to café-level brews. Translation: you can camp in the Himalayas or sit through a soul-sucking office meeting and still sip something that feels borderline artisanal.