Many people think that instant coffee is made from low quality coffee beans, numerous additives, and chemicals. Sometimes it can be partly true: as a result of the production technology coffee can lose taste and aroma. Some manufacturers restore it by adding additives, which can be both natural and artificial. However, different studies confirmed that everything produced by a conscientious and trustworthy manufacturer has almost no artificial additives.
Instant coffee can be powdered, granulated and freeze-dried.
At the first stage, for the production of any of these coffee types, high-quality coffee beans are used. They are cleaned, roasted and crushed. Then the ground coffee is poured with hot water in pressurized containers.
Then, we have a rich extract with a high concentration of flavoring substances, for which we love coffee so much. The extract obtained is cooled and filtered to remove resinous and insoluble substances, sprayed and simultaneously dried with a stream of hot air. This is how powdered coffee made.
To get granulated coffee, the coffee powder is just molded into granules with the help of steam. This process is called agglomeration.
The technology for the production of freeze-dried coffee is more complicated. That’s why it is more expensive than granulated and powdered coffee. Resulting coffee extract is dried using ice. This process is called freeze drying or freeze dry. The extract is frozen and at a temperature of -50 °C excess moisture is removed from it using a vacuum. The frozen mass is crushed, and we got coffee crystals.