Brewing on a budget: Is it time to try instant coffee again?

As inflation pushes the price of your daily barista-made cup of coffee well beyond the $5 mark, it might be time to take another look at instant coffee.

The much-maligned product has received an overhaul in recent years, as young Aussie entrepreneurs use freeze-drying technology and specialty grade beans to create premium instant coffee, a more sophisticated product than standard instant coffee but still costing as little as 70¢ a cup.

“We’re really trying to change the way people see and consume instant coffee,” says Bonnie Borland, co-founder of premium instant coffee brand Morning Joe.

While the low cost and convenience of instant coffee means it retains a significant share of Australia’s $9.8 billion coffee market (making up 75 per cent of all coffee consumed), “it still has a real stigma attached to it,” says Borland.

Changing that stigma has been one of the greatest challenges for Melbourne brothers and AFL stars Ed and Tom Langdon, who founded specialty instant coffee brand Lay Day when COVID lockdowns saw at-home coffee consumption increase by 35 per cent.

“We underestimated the challenge of reframing how people think about instant coffee,” Tom Langdon says.

“But as the price of coffee at your local café increases, and as we get closer to creating a comparable [instant] coffee, we think there’s a real market there.”

Instant coffee production typically involves roasting commodity-grade robusta beans at around 160 degrees to 230 degrees and extracting the contents with hot, pressurised water. The product is then rapidly dried with hot gas in a spray drying process, capable of producing up to 2700 kilograms of instant coffee within an hour.

“It’s the fastest and cheapest way to do it, but it heats the coffee so much it changes the flavour … making it strong and bitter,” says Borland.

Companies such as Morning Joe, Lay Day and Beat Coffee are instead choosing to roast, batch brew and freeze dry specialty grade coffee.

“The process is three times longer, but it creates a much better tasting product,” Borland explains.

Access to the technology required to effectively remove water vapour and freeze dry the coffee long acted as a barrier to entry for specialty coffee roasters, says co-owner of ST. ALi Coffee Roasters Lachlan Ward.

“The challenge with instant coffee in Australia has always been around infrastructure and manufacturing … and it’s been difficult to try to cut into the market,” Ward says.

“Luckily, it’s starting to become more readily accessible.”

Contractors such as Instant Specialty now allow roasters to deliver their product to be freeze-dried, removing the need for small businesses to purchase prohibitively expensive equipment.

That’s made it a lot easier for brands such as ST. ALito experiment with different beans, roasts and freeze drying contractors in their six-year quest to develop an instant coffee that “sparkles”.

“Flavour is king,” Ward says, comparing ST. ALi’s instant coffee to a barista-made long black.

“We’re trying to make our core blends accessible in different environments. We want people to be able to take a few sachets with them on a plane, or out camping, and get coffee pretty close to what they’d expect from a café.”

At Beat Coffee in Melbourne, owner Leigh Mellington prefers to compare his specialty instant coffee to coffee pods, which average about 60¢ per cup. Pods are also considered to be the less sustainable option, given they create an estimated 8500 tonnes of landfill each year.

Coffee Supreme chief commercial officer Greg Glubb says a consumer taste trial revealed the “sweetness and the acidity” of their instant blend was comparable to fresh filter coffee.

“Price pressure is having an impact on coffee drinkers and their buying behaviour,” he says.

“The sentiment across our wholesale customers and café owners is that people who used to come in for a few cups of coffee a day are now only coming in for one.

“Instead, we’re seeing a surge in popularity for our instant coffee and other at home coffee products.”