Opponents of instant coffee often point to its uselessness and low taste in comparison with the original product. Nevertheless, this type of coffee is very popular all over the world. It's all about convenience - preparing a cup of hot flavored drink takes a minimum of time and does not require any special equipment. For a long time, it was considered impossible to achieve the most natural taste until freeze-dried coffee appeared.
Freeze-dried coffee is produced using the freeze-dry technology, which literally means "freeze drying" in English. With this method of preparation, the finished product retains a greater amount of useful natural substances and has a much more pronounced aroma and mild rich taste. The technology for making freeze-dried coffee is rather complicated and energy-consuming, as a result of which it turns out to be somewhat more expensive than other soluble analogues.
Freeze-dried coffee production
The initial stage in preparing coffee beans for subsequent processing is to thoroughly roast them and grind them to a flour consistency. The resulting coffee flour undergoes the brewing procedure in special hermetically sealed containers for three hours. During the preparation process, some of the essential oils contained in the coffee beans leave along with the steam. In order not to deprive future drink of useful properties, there is a special technology that allows you to extract oils from steam.
After three hours of cooking, the finished thick coffee slurry is subjected to shock-freezing at low temperatures, after which it is frozen in vacuum to a dry powder. The resulting coffee mass, almost completely devoid of moisture, is broken into granules and impregnated with essential oils extracted from the coffee at the beginning of the brewing process.
What quality freeze-dried coffee should look like
When choosing freeze-dried coffee, you should pay special attention to its appearance and quality of packaging. So, granules of instant coffee should be large, dense, have a light brown tint and resemble a pyramid in their shape. If you buy coffee in transparent cans, pay attention to the observance of the tightness of the package and the shelf life - the freeze-dried product can be stored for no more than two years. The presence of sediment on the bottom of the can indicates a violation of the manufacturing technology, which means that, most likely, the drink will not fully convey the taste of real freshly brewed coffee from ground beans.
Who shouldn't drink instant coffee
Coffee is strictly prohibited for pregnant women and young mothers during breastfeeding, children under ten years of age and people prone to hypertension, with diseases of the heart and blood vessels, gastrointestinal tract, kidneys and organs of the genitourinary system.
