A true coffee lover may buy organic green coffee beans, just enough for the day, grind enough for one serving and drink the best healthy organic coffee from Colombia. Or a person may just drink a cup of coffee from time to time and not be interested in a lot of work to get the cup of java. That is where organic instant coffee comes into the picture.

How Do They Make Organic Instant Coffee?

Instant coffee has been around for a century or more. There are two methods, freeze dried and spray drying.

Spray Dried Instant Coffee

First make the coffee. Roasted and ground coffee beans are percolated much like with a home coffee percolator. The resulting coffee called the extract is then sprayed into hot air at a temperature of nearly 500 degrees Fahrenheit. The water evaporates and the coffee falls in droplets that turn into solid crystals before they land on the floor of the chamber where this happens. Coffee crystals are removed, packaged and end up in your cupboard.

Freeze Dried Instant Coffee

This process is more complicated but ends up with the same product. Coffee is roasted, ground and percolated. But in this method the coffee extract is first cooled to -20 Fahrenheit and becomes a slush. Put on a conveyer belt it is further cooled to -40 degrees Fahrenheit and freezes hard. Then the coffee ice is crushed and broken up into small crystals. The crystals are dried by sublimation and then returned to normal temperature, packaged and end up in your cupboard.

Is Instant Coffee Any Good?

Instant coffee is great for cooking where coffee flavor is required. Please note this does not include coffee cake which is made for consumption with a cup of coffee but does not contain coffee. Most coffee drinkers prefer the taste of freshly brewed coffee over the instant variety. However, instant coffee has some genuine benefits. You don´t need to deal with coffee grounds, cleaning a pot or grinding coffee. The health benefits of instant organic coffee are similar to those of ground and brewed organic coffee and it is a whole lot easier to make. Plus you can get organic instant coffee with various favoring added. But, be careful what kind of coffee is in your instant.

Arabica vs Robusta

A lot of instant coffee is Robusta although the odds of getting Arabica instant coffee go up if you buy organic. Robusta coffee is the high caffeine not so great cousin to Arabica. This variety grows faster and bigger and is more disease resistant. The caffeine in soft drinks comes from Robusta coffee beans. Arabica on the other hand is coffee for coffee lovers. Arabica grows best at high altitude and is the coffee grown in Colombia. If you buy organic coffee, shade grown coffee or gourmet coffee you will be buying Arabica. When you buy instant coffee buy organic and when you buy organic make sure it is Arabica, preferably from Colombia.