What is Pour-Over Coffee? Are the Dangers of Instant Coffee Due to Added Non-Dairy Creamer? Is the Nanjing Auntie's Coffee-Making Method Instant?

The "Nanjing Auntie" who has recently gone viral online is undoubtedly familiar to everyone. Her self-created "hand-brewed coffee" has sparked enthusiastic discussions among netizens because it differs significantly from our conventional understanding of hand-brewed coffee.

In today's era where specialty coffee shops are mushrooming everywhere, hand-brewed coffee refers to a preparation method that extracts substances from freshly ground coffee powder through tools like filter paper, drippers, and pour-over kettles combined with manual brewing. However, the "hand-brewed coffee" from the Nanjing Auntie is interpreted literally: coffee brewed manually by hand. But what sparked the discussion wasn't the interpretation of hand-brewed coffee, but rather the raw material she uses—instant coffee.

The Coffee Snobbery Chain

In any field, there exists more or less a hierarchy of snobbery, and coffee is no exception. Although FrontStreet Coffee believes that different types of coffee target different audiences and shouldn't have a "snobbery chain," such hierarchies genuinely exist. In the past, instant coffee in China was second only to Blue Mountain coffee, but now, instant coffee occupies the lowest rung in the coffee snobbery chain. So why has instant coffee's status changed so dramatically?

What is Instant Coffee?

Throughout coffee's development to this day, there have been three significant milestones in history that we refer to as the three waves of coffee. Each wave represents the changing focus of coffee culture trends at that time. For example, the first wave was characterized by "coffee instantization." Before instant coffee was invented, coffee was always prepared by grinding and brewing on the spot. Although the process was cumbersome and time-consuming, people were willing to invest the effort to make coffee because they were captivated by its delicious taste. The best proof of this is the American soldiers who were addicted to coffee—they brought this habit with them to war. During their marches, American soldiers would seize every opportunity to make coffee, even though it was energy-consuming, they enjoyed it immensely.

Subsequently, the U.S. Congress, to prevent soldiers from continuing to expend energy on coffee preparation, began researching ways to make coffee production more convenient, attempting to invent a way to easily make delicious coffee. Although research had already begun in Britain as early as the late 18th century, like the series of "instant coffees" later invented in the United States, these innovations did not gain popularity due to various reasons. (For more on the history of instant coffee, you can refer to this article "The Development History of Instant Coffee"). It wasn't until 1937 that Nestlé, responding to Brazil's needs, invented the "spray-drying method" to produce instant coffee. This process uses hot air to quickly dry atomized coffee liquid into powder, which is what we know as instant coffee powder. Since the production cost of this process was relatively low, it soon became the mainstream production method for instant coffee and laid the foundation for subsequent processes.

Because the brewing method for this type of coffee (instant) is extremely simple—requiring only the addition of hot water for the powder to immediately dissolve and combine with water to form coffee liquid—its convenience and speed were deeply loved by people. This led to the flourishing development of the instant coffee industry for a considerable period of time thereafter.

However, here comes the crucial point. Due to the low quality of coffee beans at that time, which required darker roasting, combined with the high temperatures in the instant coffee process that accelerated the loss of coffee flavors, the instant coffee produced then was not particularly delicious. Consequently, people added large amounts of sugar and non-dairy creamer during the production of instant coffee to neutralize the negative flavors of the coffee. This is what we now commonly know as three-in-one instant coffee. However, due to the excessive amounts of additives, long-term consumption could have certain health effects (excluding instant black coffee). Before long, authoritative reports about the harmful effects of instant coffee flooded the media, and people began to realize the potential harm that instant coffee might bring. With this fact coming to light, coinciding with the rise of espresso coffee, people abandoned instant coffee and turned their preferences toward freshly ground espresso. From then on, coffee began to move into its second wave, while the period of instant coffee's popularity was referred to as the first wave of coffee, around 1938-1960.

The Coffee Culture in China

Coffee culture started relatively late in China. Although coffee culture in other countries had already entered the next stage, instant coffee was just making its way into China at that time. In an era when information was not well-developed and material resources were scarce, most Chinese people only knew of two types of coffee: one was the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee that they couldn't afford at all, and the other was instant coffee that could be bought even in small convenience stores. Therefore, for people at that time, affordable and delicious instant coffee was also considered a precious gem. Nowadays, the reason people resist instant coffee is mainly because, in this information-rich age, they understand that the ingredients used in instant coffee are not appealing, and they have more choices. Therefore, instant coffee is no longer as widely accepted as it once was. Because the perspective through which we view it has changed.

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