What is the difference between freeze-dried and instant coffee? What does freeze-dried coffee mean? Which is better than freeze-dried or freshly ground coffee?

With the popularity of freeze-dried food, freeze-dried coffee, which has been silent for many years, has successfully enjoyed the "dividend" of the times, and has become the "Deep-Fried Chicken" of the quick-dissolving industry in the past two years. However, Qianjie found that many friends have a certain misunderstanding about freeze-dried coffee, and this misunderstanding is not small. For example, recently, there are frequent incidents of using freshly ground coffee powder as freeze-dried coffee; there are also cases where the performance of freeze-dried coffee is comparable to that of freshly ground coffee.

In fact, it is not difficult to understand why friends have such a misunderstanding. after all, from the point of view of appearance, freeze-dried coffee does look similar to freshly ground coffee powder (as shown above). Merchants often promote freeze-dried coffee under the same banner as freshly ground coffee, which is inevitably misleading. But in fact, freeze-dried coffee and freshly ground coffee are not the same concept, and they are not comparable at all.

What is freeze-dried coffee? We must no longer be familiar with ground coffee, which refers to coffee that is freshly ground with coffee beans and then brewed on the spot, so there is not much introduction here in Qianjie, focusing on freeze-dried coffee. Freeze-dried coffee is strictly a kind of instant coffee, but it is different from traditional instant coffee in the production process. Most of the traditional instant coffee is produced by the "spray drying" invented by Nestle in 1937. In this way, the principle of heat drying is used to dry the atomized coffee liquid into coffee powder. Here in front of the street is a brief introduction to the production process: first, industrialized brewing coffee in large quantities, dissolving the substances in the coffee, and then using the sprinkler to atomize the coffee liquid into numerous small water droplets and spray it into a high-temperature drying barn, because the coffee liquid is dispersed, so the water is easily evaporated, and the rest is instant coffee powder that forms a powdered solid.

Because the production cost of this process is relatively low, it has become the mainstream production process of traditional instant solution. However, because the water is evaporated at high temperature, the flavor will also evaporate in the process, leaving only the taste of the coffee itself. More is used to make "two-in-one", "three-in-one", or "instant black coffee" with competitive prices.

The freeze-drying process is more complex, but because of this, it retains relatively more coffee flavor. The freeze-dried coffee process also dissolves the substance in the coffee first, but the concentration of the coffee liquid is relatively higher, as we can see from the image below, which is as thick as chocolate syrup.

The espresso liquid is then transferred to an environment of-5 degrees for condensation, condensed into a paste, then transferred again, and transferred to a freezer below-40 degrees to freeze into lumps. When the coffee is completely frozen into pieces, it will be broken into small particles of 2-3mm, which is why freeze-dried coffee powder is usually small pieces. In the last step, the particles are fed into a vacuum dryer to sublimate the moisture in the particles, which is the most expensive step in freeze-drying. When drying in a vacuum, the water is sublimated directly into a gaseous state rather than liquefied, and the dried particles are freeze-dried. As the flavor substances are relatively less affected in the process of treatment, freeze-dried coffee can retain more coffee flavor, but the price is therefore higher. And because freeze-drying also belongs to the category of instant coffee, it also needs to be reduced to coffee liquid by hot water.

To sum up, we can know that freeze-dried coffee is a kind of instant coffee made by freeze-vacuum drying technology. Well, seeing here in front of the street, I believe there are still many friends who will have this question: since it can retain more coffee flavor, will it taste as good as freshly ground coffee?

The answer is definitely not. Because the flavor improvement of freeze-dried coffee is the result of comparison with traditional instant coffee. If compared with freshly ground coffee, freeze-dried coffee will be inferior both in flavor and taste. It will be more suitable for coffee lovers who pursue efficiency but are unwilling to completely compromise to low quality. But if you want to pursue flavor and hierarchy, then freshly ground coffee will be more suitable for you.

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