What is hand-brewed coffee? Is the harm of instant coffee the addition of vegetable fat powder? Is Aunt Nanjing's coffee making instant?

Recently, the popular auntie in Nanjing must have been very familiar with her self-created "hand-made coffee", which is quite different from our daily understanding of hand-made coffee, so it has triggered a fanatical discussion among the majority of netizens. Now that boutique cafes are springing up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, hand-brewing coffee refers to a way of making coffee, which extracts the substances from freshly ground coffee powder by means of filter paper, filter cups, hand-brewing pots and other tools. Nanjing aunt's "hand-brewed coffee" is interpreted directly according to the literal meaning: coffee brewed manually. However, what sparked discussion among netizens was not the interpretation of hand-made coffee, but instant coffee, the raw material used by my aunt to make "hand-made coffee".

No matter what field it is, there will be a chain of disdain, and coffee is no exception. Although Qianjie believes that all kinds of coffee have different audiences, there should not be a "disdain chain", but this chain does exist. In the past, instant coffee in China can only be said to exist in the Blue Mountains, but now, instant coffee is located in the field of coffee, despising the bottom of the chain. So why does the status of instant solution change like this?

What is instant coffee? Since the development of coffee, there are three well-known important nodes in history, which we call the three waves of coffee. The three waves represented the focus of the change in the trend of coffee culture at that time, such as the first wave, "instant melting of coffee". Before instant coffee was invented, coffee was always made in a freshly ground and brewed way. Although the process is tedious and time-consuming, people always devote themselves to the production of coffee at any cost because they are addicted to the delicacy of coffee. The best proof is that American soldiers who are addicted to coffee have brought this habit to war. During the march, American soldiers always use all available space to make coffee, even if it is a very energy-consuming thing, but they also enjoy it.

Subsequently, in order to prevent soldiers from continuing to spend their energy on the production of coffee, the United States Congress began to study the convenience of coffee production and try to invent delicious coffee that can be easily made. Although the relevant research began in Britain as early as the end of the 18th century, like a series of "instant coffee" invented in the United States, it has not been popularized for a variety of reasons. (the history of instant coffee can be found in this article, "the Development of Instant Coffee". It was not until 1937 that Nestle invented the "spray drying method" to produce instant coffee according to the needs of the Brazilian country. By using hot air, the atomized coffee liquid is quickly dried into powder, which is instant coffee powder. As the production cost of this process is relatively low, it soon became the mainstream instant coffee production process, and laid the foundation for other subsequent processes.

Because the brewing method of the coffee (instant) is very simple, just pour hot water and the powder can dissolve immediately and merge with the water to form a coffee liquid. Its convenience and rapidness are loved by people, which makes the instant coffee industry flourish for a long time to come.

But here comes the point. Due to the low quality of coffee at that time, the need for deep roasting to deal with coffee, coupled with the high temperature of the instant process accelerated the loss of coffee flavor, so the instant coffee made at that time was not delicious. So on the way to make instant coffee, people add a lot of sugar and plant fat to neutralize the negative taste of coffee, which is what we often call three-in-one instant coffee. However, due to the excessive dosage, it will have a certain impact on human health after long-term drinking (except instant black coffee). So before long, there were all kinds of authoritative reports about the harmful effects of instant coffee, and people began to realize the harm that instant coffee might bring. With the exposure of this fact, the rise of spaghetti coffee, people abandon instant coffee and prefer freshly ground espresso. Since then, coffee began to move towards the second wave, and this period of instant explosion is also known as the first wave of coffee, around 1938-1960.

Domestic coffee started relatively late, although the coffee culture of other countries had entered the next stage, but the instant at that time had just entered China. For the era when information was not developed and supplies were not rich, there were only two kinds of coffee in the eyes of most Chinese people: one was the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee that they could not afford at all, and the other was the instant coffee that could be bought at the snack bar. So for people at that time, good instant coffee with good quality and low price was also a famous treasure. Nowadays, people are so resistant to instant coffee, mainly because of the developed information, knowing that the materials of instant coffee are not pleasant, and there are more choices, so instant coffee is not recognized as before. Because the way we look at it is different.

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