Although the concept may be doubly offensive – Nescafé does not need to be hipster nor will specialty coffee lovers be amused by the modern label – it explains the invention quite well: the country’s first instant specialty coffee. They have created it at Nomad Coffee and they claim to have been able to bring the quality of their coffees to this very convenient format. So we wanted to find out how something that recently sounded impossible to any lover of this drink is possible.
James Hoffmann, best barista in the world in 2007 and a well-known promoter in the world of coffee, commented in a tasting of almost 40 instant coffees from the supermarket that it is difficult to defend this format. “It is based on comfort, which is normally the opposite of quality, which has to be sacrificed to achieve it.”
In addition, instant coffee is usually cheap and in the hands of large companies, which often means that producers do not receive a fair price in the production process, he noted. There’s a winner in his video tasting of dozens of instant coffee brands, but in the end it’s almost a matter of choosing the least bad one. No trace of the freshness and nuances that one expects to find in a good cup of coffee, he explains between sips.
So the surprise at the instant coffee recently presented by Nomad is more than justified. It is true that many specialty coffee roasters offer formats beyond the bean or different types of grinding such as the popular capsules, but with soluble coffee no one had dared.
At least in Spain, because in other countries there have been some options with this specialty coffee label for years and they even talk about a kind of second wave of instant coffee.
“10 years ago, when we opened Nomad in Barcelona, ??there was a lot of rigidity and insecurities. We were very strict in how to roast, prepare, drink… Everything that went beyond that was wrong and, for example, drinking soluble coffee was considered almost a crime,” they acknowledge from this company, one of the pioneers in the specialty coffee movement. in Spain. A decade later things have changed. It is no longer about scolding the consumer – he points out – but rather that the experience is excellent and we must open up to new ways of extracting and drinking coffee.
Although Nestlé claims to be the inventor of instant coffee in 1929 with the help of its then president Louis Dapples and the chemist Max Morgenthaler, in reality in 1890 in New Zealand David Strang patented a soluble coffee that could be considered the great-great-grandfather of everything that came after it. . But it is true that Nescafé was the brand that, starting in 1939 and from Switzerland, popularized and brought instant coffee to the whole world.
According to its own data, 5,500 cups of Nescafé instant coffee are consumed every second in the world. A figure (from 2013) that gives a good clue to the popularity of this format, even though quality is not usually the main criterion of those who choose this type of preparation.
The instant coffee production process is quite complex. More so if you want to maintain a high level of quality. The first thing is to prepare a coffee – extract, as they say in coffee jargon – with a high concentration, and then dry that liquid to turn it into powder. For them, Nomad claims to have carried out tests with five freeze-drying laboratories until achieving the desired result. In this case the coffee is subjected to cold freeze-drying and, once frozen, the remaining water is removed by sublimation, to finally quickly package the resulting powder.
But beyond this process to obtain this coffee, the company places emphasis on the grain used. That’s the difference, they claim. In the quality of the coffee used and its traceability. For this instant, Colombian coffee from the Chambuku farm has been used, located at about 1,500 meters of altitude and harvested in September 2022.
We must not forget, by the way, that the name specialty coffee is based precisely on the use of beans that fall under that name used for the best coffees, which in the tasting panels obtain more than 80 points out of 100 total. . The method, therefore, is not a factor that matters in this categorization.
“It’s about being able to enjoy delicious coffee, in the quickest and most comfortable way,” they defend from Nomad. We prepare one following the instructions found on the soluble coffee sachet itself. The process is the usual: pour the coffee into a cup and add water. About 200 milliliters, they recommend, and be careful with the temperature, better below 75 degrees.
Although in the world of coffee lovers having a kettle with temperature control is not unusual, it is not something that is found in most homes. How do we calculate those 75 maximum degrees then? And in a hotel or on a trip, where these instant envelopes are supposed to be in their natural terrain?
These are questions we ask ourselves while we let it rest for a couple of minutes. Without wishing to act as improvised coffee tasters, the first sip makes it clear that we are looking at something different from the usual soluble one. There are no traces of the usual bitterness or burnt coffee flavor in many cases, and there is a very pleasant light sweetness and some chocolatey touch.
As we read in the official tasting note of the bean used, it is a creamy coffee, easy to drink and perfect to drink alone or combined with milk. It is also true that the sensation of fresh coffee and all its nuances do not appear as defined as in normal filter coffee. Wow, this is a good coffee, much better than any other instant, but without the level of a freshly prepared one.
We also tried it cold. The preparation is the same, although it is recommended to use very cold water. The dissolution is perfect and in less than five minutes we have a very good homemade ice coffee ready. With a little milk, the iced latte looks great and the slight trace of soluble flavor that we sense in the first cold sip disappears.
It is sold in packs of five sachets for 13 euros, so each coffee costs 2.6 euros. In the case of the decaffeinated version – also very tasty, with somewhat sweeter notes – the price rises to 15 euros, that is, 3 euros per sachet to prepare a cup of coffee.
Indeed, nothing to do with the usual price of instant coffee which, as a reference, is sold for less than 20 cents per sachet in the supermarket for the best-known brands and even less if you opt for white label or larger formats. .
Is there really a market for something like this? “Our entire team has taken it on vacation to prepare a cup anywhere or because it was very hot and in a minute they wanted to have a good coffee,” they say from Nomad.
Until now considered the ugly duckling of the sector, it seems that specialty coffee is willing to conquer this format as well. At the moment it is already possible to drink a very good soluble coffee.
