Stigmatized, soluble coffee grows and gains gourmet versions – 08/30/2023 – Café na Prensa

The soluble coffee industry has tried to rid the product of the low-quality beverage brand, with the launch of gourmet lines, marketing actions and the creation of quality assessment protocols.

Pioneer Nescafé, a giant in the sector, has put two new lines on the market: Gold Espresso, which hits the shelves in three different intensities (light, medium and dark roasting), and Origens do Brasil, with beans grown in São Sebastião do Paraíso (MG), Alto Paranaíba (MG) and Chapada Diamantina (BA).

The company has invested heavily in publicity actions, with tastings at events, for example, and seeks to link new products to a gourmet image.

Independent roasters have also developed their own specialty coffees in soluble versions. São Paulo-based Coffee Lab even planned to manufacture a snapshot in 2020, but had to postpone plans due to the pandemic. The project, however, has yet to be put into practice.

Also in this context of efforts to improve the perception of the sector, Abics (Brazilian Association of the Soluble Coffee Industry) launched a standard of evaluation and quality categories, something that has existed for decades in the coffee market for straining.

According to experts consulted by the coffee in the presstoday there are actually better options on the soluble products market, especially those manufactured through the freeze-drying process.

Is that instant coffee can be made by different industrial methods, which play a large role in the final quality of the drink. Are they:

In short, the main difference is the temperature, explains food scientist Rodolfo Zanin, who has been researching coffee for more than a decade and did a business post-doctorate at IGC, one of the largest soluble coffee companies in Brazil.

“When we use the spray dried, the coffee is sprayed inside a chamber at high temperatures, from 150 to 180 degrees. When we do lyophilization, this extract is frozen and drying is done at low pressure. As the pressure is lower, we can dry it at a milder temperature, and so it preserves more characteristics, especially the aromatic characteristics”, he says.

According to Zanin, the improvement in soluble products is mainly due to greater consumer demands, which made the industry run after more sophisticated processes and higher quality raw materials.

Before, the market mainly used canephora-type grains in their compositions. The species, cheaper and more limited in aromas and flavors, has gradually given way to the Arabica species – today, there are several 100% Arabica soluble coffees.

Despite the improvement, soluble coffee will always have some sensory losses compared to traditional preparations. It is that, in this method of preparation, it is only possible to extract elements that are soluble in water.

Thus, other components of strained coffee, such as fats and larger carbohydrates, will not be present in the drink prepared with soluble coffee, explains Zanin.

However, in situations where it is not possible to prepare a strained product, soluble coffee can be a practical alternative. Barista and Q-Grader (professional coffee evaluator) Isabela Raposeiras, from Coffee Lab, says that today there are indeed better instant coffees on the market.

“I’m not against the capsule, but sometimes I think it’s better to have a good lyophilized product on hand than a capsule”, he says.

Despite still carrying the stigma, the sector has registered steady growth. Data provided to coffee in the press by Abics show that the consumption of soluble coffee has grown, on average, almost 4% per year in the last five years.

The retail market share, however, is still not that big. Research commissioned in 2021 by Abic (Brazilian Coffee Industry Association) shows that only 6% of Brazilians say they drink soluble coffee.

In wholesale, the presence is greater, since the sector provides a lot of raw material for the food industry, which resorts to soluble products to manufacture products that have coffee in their composition – such as, for example, ready-to-eat cappuccinos or foods and beverages with coffee flavor.

follow the coffee in the press also on Instagram @davidmclucena and on Twitter @davidlucena

What subject would you like to see here on the blog? Send suggestions to [email protected]

PRESENT LINK: Did you like this text? Subscriber can release five free hits of any link per day. Just click the blue F below.