Instant coffee is a thing?

After spending time in Europe, I have discovered instant coffee and I’m horrified! 

Why haven’t I ever heard such a thing before? I know about instant hot chocolate (I always made mine with a cup of warm milk instead of water), but why instant coffee? One who hasn’t experienced the love for freshly brewed craft coffee may not know what their missing, or maybe it’s the convenience of opening a package and adding hot water. I don’t get it. 

I was flying on a plane from Spain to England when I experienced a bit of trauma. My laptop is open as I plan to knock out some school work on this two-hour plane ride when I began to doze off. The flight attendant passed by with the beverage cart, and I was desperate for caffeine. I ordered a coffee looking for a nice pick me up. But then I felt like I was being tricked. The pot was filled with hot water, and the flight attendant dumped a dark powder into the cup. She stirred it as she handed it to me and asked if I liked cream and sugar. I thought for a second I might have had a bad English accent and she thought I ordered a hot chocolate. I was wrong. My friend sitting next to me assured me its coffee — instant coffee. 

I tried to doctor up my instant coffee with the cream and sugar as I really needed a caffeine fix. I went in for the first sip, and I was not impressed. My thoughts were running wil. Why didn’t she warn me they only had instant coffee? Maybe this is the norm here. Or maybe I am high maintenance with my love for a fresh brewed coffee. Whatever it is, I am not a fan of this thing known as instant coffee.

Surely I can understand the concept of instant coffee if you’re out camping in the woods. (Personally, I’d pack Starbucks bottled ice coffee instead.) On a daily basis, I am perplexed why anyone would drink instant coffee instead of the velvety smooth fresh-brewed coffee.

“Americans’ taste in coffee might be getting more high-end—with a growing fixation on perfectly roasted beans, pricier caffeinated concoctions, and artisan coffee brewers—but it turns out a surprisingly big part of the world is going in the opposite direction: towards instant coffee,” a Washington Post article said. The U.S. is keeping a distant to the craze of instant coffee. 

“The U.S. is entirely unique in its aversion to instant coffee," Dana LaMendola, an industry analyst at Euromonitor, said in the article. “Even in Europe, where fresh coffee is preferred, instant coffee is still seen as acceptable for at home and on the go consumption. In the U.S. the view is just much more negative.”

— Brittany Sowell

Four Crossed Logs intern

professional communication major