How Is Instant Coffee Made? The Full Process, Step by Step

Instant coffee is real brewed coffee with the water taken out. A factory brews coffee in huge batches, much stronger than you would at home, concentrates it, then dries it into granules or powder. When you add hot water, you are putting back what the factory removed.

Each step changes how the coffee tastes, which is why instant never quite matches a fresh brew, and why some jars taste much better than others. Here is the whole process, what is actually in the jar, and how to make a better cup from it.

Step 1: Roasting and Grinding

Most instant coffee is made from Robusta beans or blends heavy in Robusta. They cost less, carry more caffeine and give up more soluble material in the factory. Premium jars use more or all Arabica, which tastes smoother; our guide to Arabica vs Robusta explains the difference. The beans are roasted in large industrial batches, usually to a medium or darker roast, then ground. The grind is coarser than you would use for drip at home, because water has to flow through very deep beds of coffee in the next step.

Step 2: Extraction

This is where instant parts ways with home brewing. The ground coffee is loaded into a row of tall steel columns, often six or more, linked together. Hot water enters the column holding the most-used coffee and is pumped through each column in turn toward the freshest grounds, picking up more coffee as it goes. Because the system is under pressure, the water in the hottest column can be 150 to 180°C (about 300 to 355°F) and still stay liquid.

Water that hot pulls far more out of the coffee than a kettle can, including some of the starches and fibers that do not dissolve at normal brewing temperatures. That gives the factory more coffee from every kilo of beans and helps the extract dry into granules later. It is also a big part of why instant tastes different from a fresh cup.

Step 3: Aroma Recovery and Concentration

The extract that comes out of the columns is weak, only a few percent coffee solids, and it carries most of the coffee’s aroma. Those aroma compounds are delicate, so many factories strip them off first, usually with steam, and save them to add back at the end.

The extract is then concentrated, typically to around 40 to 50 percent solids, so there is less water to remove in the dryer. Most plants do this by evaporation, boiling off water under a vacuum so it happens at a lower temperature. Some premium producers use freeze concentration instead: they chill the extract until ice crystals form and filter the ice out, which avoids heating the coffee again.

Step 4: Drying

The concentrate is turned into a dry, soluble solid in one of two ways. Which one a brand uses usually shows on the label and in the look of the granules.

Step 5: Packaging

Before packing, the saved aroma is often added back onto the granules, which is why a fresh jar smells stronger than the cup tastes. The coffee then goes into jars, tins or sachets, usually flushed with nitrogen to push out oxygen. The real enemy is moisture: instant coffee pulls water out of the air, which makes it clump and go stale, so a tight seal matters more than anything else.

What’s in Instant Coffee?

In a plain jar, just coffee. The label should say 100 percent coffee, or soluble coffee, which is the same thing. A few brands mix in very finely ground roasted coffee for extra body and aroma, sold as “microground” or “with ground coffee.” Three-in-one sachets are different: they add sugar and creamer, so check the label if that matters to you. An 8-ounce cup made with a typical teaspoon or two has about 62 mg of caffeine, according to Mayo Clinic, a bit less than brewed coffee; see our caffeine guide for the comparison.

A Short History of Instant Coffee

New Zealander David Strang patented a soluble coffee powder in 1890, and Japanese-American chemist Satori Kato showed his version at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. George Constant Washington sold the first mass-produced instant coffee in the United States from 1910, and it went to the trenches with American soldiers in World War I. Nestlé launched Nescafé in 1938, developed to use up a surplus of Brazilian coffee, and its spray-dried powder spread around the world during and after World War II. Freeze-dried instant followed in the 1960s. For the longer story, see our history of instant coffee.

Instant vs Ground Coffee

	Instant	Ground
Time to a cup	Under a minute	4–10 minutes
Flavor	Flatter, less aroma	Fuller and more complex, and you control the brew
Cost per cup	About 10–30¢	About 35–70¢
Keeps	Months in a sealed jar	A few weeks once opened
Best for	Travel, the office, baking	Brewing at home

How to Make Better Instant Coffee

• Iced: dissolve 2 teaspoons in 2 tablespoons of hot water, pour over ice, and top with cold milk or water.
• Quick mocha: add a teaspoon of cocoa and a little sugar before the water.
• Whipped: whisk instant coffee, sugar and hot water into a thick foam for whipped coffee.
• Greek frappe: shake instant coffee with a little cold water until it foams, then pour over ice. Our frappe guide has the recipe.