What is instant coffee? What's the difference between instant coffee and freshly ground coffee?

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Instant coffee is the kind of coffee that melts as soon as it is washed with boiling water. There is no residue and it can be drunk directly. Instant coffee is divided into instant pure (black) coffee and instant three-in-one and instant two-in-one coffee, all of which are prepared by the manufacturer in advance. Freshly ground coffee refers to coffee beans, which need to be ground and extracted with corresponding tools, that is, what we call "brewing coffee". There are many tools to make coffee, such as coffee maker, hand brew, French presser, siphon pot and so on. Interested friends can read my other articles and introduce them. The freshly ground coffee will not get the coffee liquid until it is "boiled", and it already has a strong coffee aroma without any addition.

Instant coffee was invented much earlier than you might think, David Strang, a New Zealander in 1890.

The earliest instant coffee was invented and patented by Kato Satori, a Japanese scientist working in Chicago, USA in 1901.

Improvements have been made. Since then, George Washington, an American who has nothing to do with the founding father of the United States, invented the technology for mass production of instant coffee and brought it to market in 1910.

The real development of modern instant coffee technology was in 1938, in order to deal with the problem of coffee bean surplus, the Brazilian government worked with Nestle to develop a more advanced spray drying method for instant coffee manufacturing. The specific method is to use hot steam to evaporate the water in the coffee bean extract, leaving the dry extract, which can quickly dissolve in hot water, and takes up less space and volume in the process of storage and transportation, so it is more resistant to storage, so it is popular in the mass market.

Compared with freshly ground coffee, instant coffee is more convenient to sell. It can be bought in random convenience stores and supermarkets, and the way of brewing is also very simple. You just need to add hot water to stir, you don't have to wait. And freshly ground coffee for coffee lovers, a good cup of freshly ground coffee needs to calm down and taste its charm, and simply refreshing effect. So is instant coffee harmless? The answer is yes, because there are about 10 grams of sugar in 18 grams of a bag of instant coffee, and if you drink two cups of coffee a day, the sugar intake is about 20 grams, which is more than 23% of a person's daily sugar intake. so drinking instant coffee regularly will get fat and greatly increase the incidence of diabetes. But instant coffee also has benefits, instant coffee is good for the skin, promote metabolic function, activate digestive organs, and have a great effect on the treatment of constipation. Can eliminate fatigue, relieve fatigue requires nutrition, rest and sleep, promote metabolic functions, and coffee happens to have these functions.

Instant coffee in the production process lost most of the coffee aroma and taste, of course, nutrition also lost a lot, the rest of the bitter taste is heavier, the fat content is relatively low, instant coffee shelf life is also for this reason. When brewing, it is equivalent to secondary extraction, so don't blame the merchant for drinking instant coffee without fragrance. This is a common fault. It's not that whose instant coffee is bad, but that everyone's instant coffee is almost the same, so the freshly ground coffee is coffee beans. Coffee beans are roasted directly from the roaster, just like the snacks we tested from the oven, the original aroma is sufficient, the nutrition is good, and the taste is also very good! The aroma of coffee beans is locked in the beans before they are ground into powder and tastes good within 3 months after baking. The shelf life is much shorter than instant coffee.

In the previous "Coffee carcinogenic incident", I have mentioned that the carcinogen "acrylamide" content of instant coffee is more than 100 times that of freshly brewed coffee, so it is recommended to choose freshly ground coffee for the sake of health.