What's the Difference Between Freeze-Dried Coffee and Instant Coffee?

The Evolution of Coffee: From Instant to Freeze-Dried

Before international coffee chains entered the Chinese market, domestic coffee consumption was dominated primarily by instant coffee. It wasn't until foreign chains brought Italian-style coffee to China that instant coffee began to decline and freeze-dried coffee started to rise.

Both products share similar usage methods—simply mix with hot water for direct consumption—making them both forms of convenient coffee. This naturally raises the question: are they essentially the same product with different names?

While both products were born from the concept of convenience and belong to the category of convenient coffee, there are distinct differences between them. Let's start with instant coffee!

The Birth of Instant Coffee

In the 18th century, during the American Revolutionary War, soldiers developed an almost fanatic obsession with a stimulating beverage—coffee, to the point where they couldn't function without it! Therefore, one of the most common sights during military marches was: soldiers seizing every opportunity to brew a pot of coffee and drink heartily.

However, since the military distributed unground coffee beans, soldiers needed to grind the beans every time they wanted coffee, then brew the ground coffee particles—extremely time-consuming. This seemingly crazy behavior reached the American Congress, which then launched a research project called "Simple Portable Coffee" to prevent soldiers from spending too much time and energy on coffee consumption. Then, with generous congressional sponsorship, by the end of 1861, a product called "Coffee Essence" was born. According to the inventor's description, this "Coffee Essence" was obtained by concentrating a mixture of coffee, milk, and sugar! Just a small spoonful mixed with water would become a delicious pot of coffee, with both weight and volume significantly compressed, making it extremely portable!

Despite this pitch, American soldiers weren't buying it! This essence tasted terrible, wasn't stimulating, and possibly because it was made with spoiled milk, many soldiers experienced immediate diarrhea after drinking it! This series of negative examples quickly led to the discontinuation of this coffee essence. Although it was discontinued, it allowed all businessmen to smell huge business opportunities,纷纷投入便携咖啡的制作中! In 1890, David Strang, who sold coffee and spices on New Zealand's South Island, produced soluble coffee powder by spraying hot steam onto coffee liquid and named it "Strang Coffee." That's right—this soluble coffee powder was the world's first true "instant coffee."

In 1899, Japanese chemist Kato Satoru produced instant coffee by extracting coffee solution and drying it into powder under vacuum conditions, obtaining a patent for this technology in 1903. However, he didn't recognize the commercial potential of this product at that time. So in 1906, George C.L. Washington obtained a production patent for instant coffee in the United States, created the commercial instant coffee "Red E Coffee," and heavily promoted it to the market. But ultimately, "Red E Coffee" didn't spread worldwide due to its poor taste. It wasn't until 1929, when Brazil had large quantities of coffee beans stranded due to economic crisis! To solve this problem, the Brazilian Coffee Institute approached Switzerland's Nestlé company to request development of instant coffee with more concrete flavor.

Subsequently, Nestlé spent eight years and in 1937 invented the "spray drying method," which first extracts substances from coffee beans, then uses hot air to evaporate the water from the coffee, drying it from liquid to powder, adding soluble carbohydrates during the drying process to enhance its flavor. And so, more convenient instant coffee was born!

But its disadvantages were also obvious: due to continuous high-temperature drying, the aromatic substances in coffee almost completely evaporated, leaving only bitter components. Therefore, instant coffee production typically used lower-quality Robusta beans, then added large amounts of non-dairy creamer and sugar to dilute the bitterness. This is why instant became synonymous with "low-end coffee," because early instant coffee wasn't healthy. While promoting instant coffee, people continued to research and innovate. Subsequently, people discovered that vacuum freeze-drying technology (Freeze Drying), invented in 1935 by Staurt Mudd and Dr. Earl W. Flosdorf, could be applied to food production. Hills Brothers then used freeze-drying technology to produce freeze-dried coffee, obtaining 47 US and foreign patents between 1966-1971.

The production steps of freeze-dried coffee are somewhat similar to instant coffee—both start by extracting substances from coffee beans! However, the extracted coffee liquid for freeze-drying isn't thin like our usual brews; instead, it's very thick, similar to chocolate syrup. After extraction, this coffee liquid is immediately transported to an environment of -5°C to condense until it becomes paste-like, then transferred to a freezing chamber below -40°C for freezing! After freezing into blocks, it's directly broken into 2-3mm small pieces.

Finally, these block-shaped coffee pieces are sent to a vacuum drying chamber for heating and drying. When heated under vacuum conditions, water sublimates rather than liquefies. The coffee particles after drying are the freeze-dried coffee we see today! Because cooling occurred immediately after extraction, freeze-dried coffee can retain more coffee flavor, allowing for the use of better Arabica beans to replace Robusta. Of course, this was followed by increased costs due to complex processes and expensive materials.

Conclusion

Speaking of which, it seems we've found our answer. The reason what we consider instant coffee is often defined by coffee enthusiasts as the bottom of the "scorn chain" is because its processing and materials result in poor taste. Long-standing stereotypes also make it difficult to associate this term with good flavor. Therefore, when instant coffee appeared before people with a "completely new look (freeze-dried coffee) and new meaning (using better materials)," it gained the ability to be sought after again.

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