Is Colombian Instant Coffee Black Coffee? The Differences Between Instant Coffee and Regular Coffee Powder

Often, customers come to FrontStreet Coffee and ask about our coffee grounds, then quietly ask: "What's the difference between your coffee grounds and instant coffee powder?"

To quickly help customers understand, I usually tell them in simple terms: "Our coffee grounds will leave coffee sediment after brewing, while instant coffee dissolves completely like mixing milk."

Let me write the theoretical aspects in the article! There are several differences between ground coffee and instant coffee, but the most important is that instant coffee has already been brewed and dehydrated. Ground coffee hasn't been brewed—it's just crushed coffee beans.

The Fundamental Difference

Coffee grounds are made from real coffee beans, while instant coffee is not. Their main difference lies in their composition. Essentially, both instant coffee and ground coffee are coffee, yes. Ground coffee is a pile of coffee beans ground to a specific size. After coffee cherries are picked and dried, the beans are separated from them, already roasted to a certain degree. Then they are ground to specific sizes according to the coffee company's requirements. But that's where the process stops. The ground coffee is then packaged and shipped to the market.

Instant coffee, on the other hand, is ground coffee that has already been brewed into real, drinkable coffee. Then only the liquid is cooled and dried (through various processes), leaving only the solids from the coffee. The most common process involves spraying brewed coffee in a large tower where hot air circulates. This dries the coffee particles, which collect at the bottom of the tower.

2. Instant Coffee Dissolves in Liquid

Instant coffee typically dissolves directly into water or other liquids, and most instant coffees are mixtures of coffee with milk powder, sugar, and added flavorings. Meanwhile, coffee grounds contain a large amount of water-insoluble fibers that won't disappear in the beverage—our purpose is to extract substances from the coffee grounds.

3. Different Caffeine Content

Ground coffee generally has higher caffeine content than instant coffee, which is related to two very important things that happen when brewing coffee.

The way caffeine works requires extraction from your actual coffee beans or grounds. This happens when the beans are heated and liquid pulls it out. This means the hot water in contact with the coffee actually absorbs the caffeine from the coffee beans. The longer the coffee stays in the water, the more caffeine is extracted.

With instant coffee, you have no control. The caffeine content extracted depends entirely on the coffee company that produces the instant coffee.

4. Quality Difference

Instant coffee generally has lower quality than coffee grounds, though it is certainly cheaper. For example, Blue Mountain flavored coffee only contains a small amount of actual Blue Mountain coffee.

5. Instant Coffee is Almost Always Made from Robusta Coffee Beans

It brings high caffeine content to instant coffee, and the flavor is very strong, able to withstand large amounts of milk and sugar or additional flavorings. When making instant coffee, a lot of coffee is lost, so using inexpensive, high-yield Robusta coffee greatly reduces the cost of producing instant coffee. If you just want to drink coffee with a richer, fuller body, you can choose Mandheling coffee—the quality is definitely much better than instant coffee. General instant coffee absolutely would not use high-quality Arabica coffee beans like Geisha.

6. Brewing Time

The brewing time for ground coffee is typically much longer than for instant coffee.

Instant coffee only needs hot water added, but making coffee with grounds is more troublesome—you need to clean equipment and then dispose of the coffee sediment.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473