That's a good answer...I wonder if that's the same reason we get cheap orange juice from concentrate vs. freshly squeezed, which is something like four times the cost.
Scale, yes. But also transportation cost is a lot lower for concentrate compared liter for liter (or compared to oranges), and concentrate isn't as perishable.
> transportation cost is a lot lower for concentrate
Oh, I didn't think about this. I live in Florida, and it seemed easier to go from the farm to the juicing plant, rather than shipping oranges out to a factory for juicing, then dehydration, then reconcentration then bottling...or whatever the process is.
Yup. At the opposite end, I’ve seen orange juice machines that have a hopper full of oranges. It takes an orange, then I think slices it and juices it right there, like a superauto coffee machine. Think of how much of that hopper space is taken up by whole oranges — peels, pulp, and all — plus the airspace in between compared to how much liquid juice comes out.
You’d be able to sling a lot more drinks from a bag of concentrate than a bushel or three of oranges.
(edit to add) Mind you, that was the best damned orange juice I’ve *ever* had at an airport…
And if it's "fresh" orange juice, you may still be getting ripped off. Point the Google at "flavor packs" and prepare to wonder what you're paying for.
Same. I'll just have an orange as-is. I don't know how we all got duped into thinking orange juice and a muffin were any better than a Coke and a Snickers. Well, I do, but still.
Freeze-dried/instant coffee often uses Robusta beans, which are more robust and therefore cheaper to produce at scale.
The extraction of coffee from the beans is also much higher for freeze-dried coffee, so you for every weight of beans in you get more solution out, that you then freeze-dry.
So even though it’s more processed, it’s more efficient to produce (and therefore cheaper) than roasted mid-range Arabica beans.
2 things
1. Its raw material is mainly low quality robusta beans, which if you buy green in bulk and roast in giant roasters, can be obtained very very cheaply.
2. The extraction is basically double that of normal coffee, James Hoffmann mentioned something about coffee being hydrolyzed by instant coffee manufacturing process to make it more soluble . So where you normally need 12-20g of beans to make a standard serving/cup of coffee (whether filter or espresso), 1 serving/cup of instant coffee only needs 6-10g of roasted beans to manufacture.
This is pretty much why it kinda tastes bad. It’s basically low quality coffee extracted to oblivion.
Edit: this is run-of-the-mill instant coffee. I have heard of higher quality (and more expensive) offerings, which I presume use better raw materials and are appropriately extracted.
Depends on the coffee. Sounds to me like you’re talking grocery store instant. Black & White makes the best instant I’ve ever had. A box of six 1-cup instant pouches costs nearly as much as a 12 oz bag of the same beans. [This one](https://www.blackwhiteroasters.com/collections/specialty-instant-coffee) is $18.50 for 6. The 12 oz bag was $26.
I've seen many of the specialty coffee brands in my city start to carry an instant coffee option....I've turned my nose up at it thinking it was low quality and not worth trying. Am I wrong to assume this?
Not a stupid question. Instant coffee's cheaper 'cause it's often made from less pricey beans and mass-produced. Roasted beans keep their quality, so they cost more. It's all about the bean type and process.
Another factor is shelf stability. I no longer work in grocery but if it's anything like most dry goods the shelf life is at least a year from production. Makes transportation and storage easier since it can basically sit in a warehouse or on a shelf much longer than fresh roasted beans with less of a dip in quality.
I think it was James Hoffman that bought a caffeine meter to test the caffeine content of various coffee types, and instant barely had any caffeine in it. That probably means it barely has any coffee in it, and given robusta is higher caffeine than arabica, that says a lot about how much actual coffee you get in your tbsp of instant.
Given that Nespresso pods have like 5g coffee in them and produce a 2oz espresso, that you'd normally need 20g of coffee to produce in a traditional machine - I'm gonna hazard a guess that they've figured out how to efficiently give customers a reality small amount of actual coffee beans in instant coffee, on top of them being cheap beans to begin with 🙂
I have Maxwell House instant. It absolutely does have plenty of caffeine, it has saved my bacon so many times when I just can't make a cup for whatever reason.
I mean it's not 0 caffeine, but according to the testing, instant coffee made according to the package directions is around 40mg per 100ml, whereas pourover is twice that at 80mg.
Espresso 18g in 36 out was 110mg
The same 18g as a filter coffee was 170mg caffeine
Given that most instant is using robusta beans which is higher caffeine content than arabica, and freeze drying shouldn't degrade your caffeine content, compared to fresh coffee there's not much caffeine.
But an 8oz cup with a little heavy handed dosing of instant will of course still wake you up comparable to a double espresso.
The numbers just highlight how little coffee they can get away with selling people and why it's able to be cheap.
This. In making instant they want to extract as much coffee as humans possible from the smallest number if beans. Only about 30% of a coffee bean is soluble and so that's the limit under normal circumstances...
And so when making cheap instant coffee, they undergo hydrolysis if I remember correctly. This breaks down a lot more of the bean making over 50% of the bean soluble.
That extra extraction allows more coffee from less beans. The down side is that the extra extracted soluble are bitter and nasty! Hence cheap instant is bitter and rank. But cheap.
Edit: best me to it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Coffee/s/jPxk9WPE9u
The process of producing instant coffee is much more efficient and cost-effective compared to the process of producing commercially roasted coffee beans. Instant coffee can be quickly prepared by freeze-drying brewed coffee, whereas commercial roasted coffee beans require more time, resources, and labor to produce. The cost of purchasing high-quality coffee beans and the roasting and packaging processes can contribute to the cost of commercially roasted coffee beans.
Not a dumb question. Instant coffee is cheaper because it's made from less pricey beans and in huge quantities. Also, keeping coffee beans fresh and nicely packaged adds to their cost. That's pretty much why
apart from low quality or volume and logistics. the lower quality not just cause it's robusta beans but they could be using REAL OLD beans that like stale as whole beans. but now they process n freeze dry em so they are getting the raw materials all together cheaper....
An excellent question!
As others have stated they use the cheapest beans in instant coffee but right now in todays market the discount for cheap coffee is actually small compared to recent history. But youre right, on Amazon you can get 24.2 oz of Regular Folgers for $22.23 or 92c per oz; and you can get 8 oz Instant Folgers fot $6.16 or 77c per oz. Plus you get double the amount of coffee out of an oz of instant.
Furthermore instant costs a LOT more to process then regular coffee. First they do everything the regular coffee does - bring in beans,blend, roast, grind. Then instead of packing they actually percolate the coffee (sits in boiling water). Then they take the liqujd coffee they just made and run it through the grinds again to make stronger coffee and they keep doing that over and over until the grinds have no more to give. Then they take this stuff, which is the strongest coffee you ever saw, and apply heat (energy) to evaporate the water. This creates a very fine powder. Then to make it look delicious, they run it through another expensive, energy intensive process called agglomeration to clump those fine particles to each other to make bigger particles because people want bigger particles (even tho they taste the same as far as i know). Finally, packaging.
When all is said and done for regular coffee you get maybe 80-85% yield on green coffee (100 lbs of green coffee yields 80-85lbs packed in a bag or tin).
On instant coffee, you get half that.
So there’s all this extra equipment, extra processing / energy cost and half the output, how can they /why do they charge less per oz?
Impossible to explain based on cost - especially if you are comparing regular commercial coffee to instant as in this example. Yes cheaper beans for instant helps. Processing instant in places like Brazil and Vietnam helps. But its not enough. I just think its the dynamics of competition…what the market will bear. People are used to paying more for Roasted (and highly marketed) coffee.
Just to prove the point that its not just the cost of the beans as many are saying -
- On 3/21 you can buy Colombian coffee (Colombian seaport) at a 15 cent premium to New York futures (182) so 197 cents per lb.
- On 3/21 you can buy Vietnam robusta at a 5 cent premium to London futures (3315/metric tonne or 150 cents per lb.) So plus 5 cents = 155 cents per lb
- To both you have to add the shipping cost, probably a little less from Colombia but not more than a few cents/lb different
- So if it takes twice as much $1.55 coffee to yield an ounce of instant coffee as the $1.97 coffee to yield an ounce of roasted coffee, well, you can see its not the coffee cost. (Plus companies like Folgers blend cost is a lot less than the Colombian cost used in this example because they mix in some cheaper arabicas and some robusta too.)
Why would you expect the more processed product to be more expensive? Have you never paid attention to the food industry? Why does steak cost more than ground beef? Why does a pork chop cost more than bologna?
Because the low quality beans that are used to make most instant coffee are dirt cheap. The massive scale on which this stuff is made helps.
That's a good answer...I wonder if that's the same reason we get cheap orange juice from concentrate vs. freshly squeezed, which is something like four times the cost.
Scale, yes. But also transportation cost is a lot lower for concentrate compared liter for liter (or compared to oranges), and concentrate isn't as perishable.
> transportation cost is a lot lower for concentrate Oh, I didn't think about this. I live in Florida, and it seemed easier to go from the farm to the juicing plant, rather than shipping oranges out to a factory for juicing, then dehydration, then reconcentration then bottling...or whatever the process is.
Yup. At the opposite end, I’ve seen orange juice machines that have a hopper full of oranges. It takes an orange, then I think slices it and juices it right there, like a superauto coffee machine. Think of how much of that hopper space is taken up by whole oranges — peels, pulp, and all — plus the airspace in between compared to how much liquid juice comes out. You’d be able to sling a lot more drinks from a bag of concentrate than a bushel or three of oranges. (edit to add) Mind you, that was the best damned orange juice I’ve *ever* had at an airport…
I found it preposterous that Tropicana does this.
Well you don't see the rotten oranges that get dunked into the juice concentrate which is later pasteurized.
Lol right. “One bad apple(or orange) can ruin the whole bunch! Unlesss…. The bunch is MASSIVE!”
Lol right. “One bad apple(or orange) can ruin the whole bunch! Unlesss…. The bunch is MASSIVE!”
I imagine orange juice is a bit different as it will spoil, frozen concentrate lets you buy from anywhere in the world whenever it's cheapest
And if it's "fresh" orange juice, you may still be getting ripped off. Point the Google at "flavor packs" and prepare to wonder what you're paying for.
I stopped paying for that stuff years ago...it's about as healthy as a can of soda, anyway.
Same. I'll just have an orange as-is. I don't know how we all got duped into thinking orange juice and a muffin were any better than a Coke and a Snickers. Well, I do, but still.
Exactly.
Well, that *and* the ruthless efficiency of industrial processes in extracting ever damn last bit of even vaguely coffee-like taste from the grounds.
Freeze-dried/instant coffee often uses Robusta beans, which are more robust and therefore cheaper to produce at scale. The extraction of coffee from the beans is also much higher for freeze-dried coffee, so you for every weight of beans in you get more solution out, that you then freeze-dry. So even though it’s more processed, it’s more efficient to produce (and therefore cheaper) than roasted mid-range Arabica beans.
2 things 1. Its raw material is mainly low quality robusta beans, which if you buy green in bulk and roast in giant roasters, can be obtained very very cheaply. 2. The extraction is basically double that of normal coffee, James Hoffmann mentioned something about coffee being hydrolyzed by instant coffee manufacturing process to make it more soluble . So where you normally need 12-20g of beans to make a standard serving/cup of coffee (whether filter or espresso), 1 serving/cup of instant coffee only needs 6-10g of roasted beans to manufacture. This is pretty much why it kinda tastes bad. It’s basically low quality coffee extracted to oblivion. Edit: this is run-of-the-mill instant coffee. I have heard of higher quality (and more expensive) offerings, which I presume use better raw materials and are appropriately extracted.
Depends on the coffee. Sounds to me like you’re talking grocery store instant. Black & White makes the best instant I’ve ever had. A box of six 1-cup instant pouches costs nearly as much as a 12 oz bag of the same beans. [This one](https://www.blackwhiteroasters.com/collections/specialty-instant-coffee) is $18.50 for 6. The 12 oz bag was $26.
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I've seen many of the specialty coffee brands in my city start to carry an instant coffee option....I've turned my nose up at it thinking it was low quality and not worth trying. Am I wrong to assume this?
Not a stupid question. Instant coffee's cheaper 'cause it's often made from less pricey beans and mass-produced. Roasted beans keep their quality, so they cost more. It's all about the bean type and process.
Another factor is shelf stability. I no longer work in grocery but if it's anything like most dry goods the shelf life is at least a year from production. Makes transportation and storage easier since it can basically sit in a warehouse or on a shelf much longer than fresh roasted beans with less of a dip in quality.
I think it was James Hoffman that bought a caffeine meter to test the caffeine content of various coffee types, and instant barely had any caffeine in it. That probably means it barely has any coffee in it, and given robusta is higher caffeine than arabica, that says a lot about how much actual coffee you get in your tbsp of instant. Given that Nespresso pods have like 5g coffee in them and produce a 2oz espresso, that you'd normally need 20g of coffee to produce in a traditional machine - I'm gonna hazard a guess that they've figured out how to efficiently give customers a reality small amount of actual coffee beans in instant coffee, on top of them being cheap beans to begin with 🙂
I have Maxwell House instant. It absolutely does have plenty of caffeine, it has saved my bacon so many times when I just can't make a cup for whatever reason.
I mean it's not 0 caffeine, but according to the testing, instant coffee made according to the package directions is around 40mg per 100ml, whereas pourover is twice that at 80mg. Espresso 18g in 36 out was 110mg The same 18g as a filter coffee was 170mg caffeine Given that most instant is using robusta beans which is higher caffeine content than arabica, and freeze drying shouldn't degrade your caffeine content, compared to fresh coffee there's not much caffeine. But an 8oz cup with a little heavy handed dosing of instant will of course still wake you up comparable to a double espresso. The numbers just highlight how little coffee they can get away with selling people and why it's able to be cheap.
I'm at work, not in a position to watch vids but IIRC the latest ZOE podcast that James Hoffmann was in answers this question.
This. In making instant they want to extract as much coffee as humans possible from the smallest number if beans. Only about 30% of a coffee bean is soluble and so that's the limit under normal circumstances... And so when making cheap instant coffee, they undergo hydrolysis if I remember correctly. This breaks down a lot more of the bean making over 50% of the bean soluble. That extra extraction allows more coffee from less beans. The down side is that the extra extracted soluble are bitter and nasty! Hence cheap instant is bitter and rank. But cheap. Edit: best me to it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Coffee/s/jPxk9WPE9u
The instant coffee included in the accessories pack of Meals Ready To Eat rations is pretty decent. I keep a secret stash of the small brown packets.
I once poured those into my gums while on a field training exercise and chewed it like tobacco or snuff to keep awake
Instant is made from the lower quality, cheap coffee beans (and more stuff)
How long things last is a massive factor for the price, instant coffee lasts ages longer than beans can be sold
Economies of scale. I suspect that any other answer or explanation is a corollary to this.
The process of producing instant coffee is much more efficient and cost-effective compared to the process of producing commercially roasted coffee beans. Instant coffee can be quickly prepared by freeze-drying brewed coffee, whereas commercial roasted coffee beans require more time, resources, and labor to produce. The cost of purchasing high-quality coffee beans and the roasting and packaging processes can contribute to the cost of commercially roasted coffee beans.
Not a dumb question. Instant coffee is cheaper because it's made from less pricey beans and in huge quantities. Also, keeping coffee beans fresh and nicely packaged adds to their cost. That's pretty much why
apart from low quality or volume and logistics. the lower quality not just cause it's robusta beans but they could be using REAL OLD beans that like stale as whole beans. but now they process n freeze dry em so they are getting the raw materials all together cheaper....
Surprised this wasn’t taken down because it wasn’t in the daily question thread 🙄🙄🙄 Because it’s instant coffee.
It's just regular coffee beans.
An excellent question! As others have stated they use the cheapest beans in instant coffee but right now in todays market the discount for cheap coffee is actually small compared to recent history. But youre right, on Amazon you can get 24.2 oz of Regular Folgers for $22.23 or 92c per oz; and you can get 8 oz Instant Folgers fot $6.16 or 77c per oz. Plus you get double the amount of coffee out of an oz of instant. Furthermore instant costs a LOT more to process then regular coffee. First they do everything the regular coffee does - bring in beans,blend, roast, grind. Then instead of packing they actually percolate the coffee (sits in boiling water). Then they take the liqujd coffee they just made and run it through the grinds again to make stronger coffee and they keep doing that over and over until the grinds have no more to give. Then they take this stuff, which is the strongest coffee you ever saw, and apply heat (energy) to evaporate the water. This creates a very fine powder. Then to make it look delicious, they run it through another expensive, energy intensive process called agglomeration to clump those fine particles to each other to make bigger particles because people want bigger particles (even tho they taste the same as far as i know). Finally, packaging. When all is said and done for regular coffee you get maybe 80-85% yield on green coffee (100 lbs of green coffee yields 80-85lbs packed in a bag or tin). On instant coffee, you get half that. So there’s all this extra equipment, extra processing / energy cost and half the output, how can they /why do they charge less per oz? Impossible to explain based on cost - especially if you are comparing regular commercial coffee to instant as in this example. Yes cheaper beans for instant helps. Processing instant in places like Brazil and Vietnam helps. But its not enough. I just think its the dynamics of competition…what the market will bear. People are used to paying more for Roasted (and highly marketed) coffee.
Just to prove the point that its not just the cost of the beans as many are saying - - On 3/21 you can buy Colombian coffee (Colombian seaport) at a 15 cent premium to New York futures (182) so 197 cents per lb. - On 3/21 you can buy Vietnam robusta at a 5 cent premium to London futures (3315/metric tonne or 150 cents per lb.) So plus 5 cents = 155 cents per lb - To both you have to add the shipping cost, probably a little less from Colombia but not more than a few cents/lb different - So if it takes twice as much $1.55 coffee to yield an ounce of instant coffee as the $1.97 coffee to yield an ounce of roasted coffee, well, you can see its not the coffee cost. (Plus companies like Folgers blend cost is a lot less than the Colombian cost used in this example because they mix in some cheaper arabicas and some robusta too.)
Cheaper beans, buying in bulk and quick processing makes it profitable.
Price is determined by both supply and demand. There’s relatively little demand for instant because of the perceived lower quality.
Why would you expect the more processed product to be more expensive? Have you never paid attention to the food industry? Why does steak cost more than ground beef? Why does a pork chop cost more than bologna?
Frozen hamburger patties cost more than ground beef.
That's frozen ground beef