A coffee story

The process of making soluble or instant coffee was patented back in 1909 by a Japanese chemist. In this form, coffee became easy-to-prepare, and lasted longer on shelves.

However, it didn’t taste as good as a freshly brewed coffee. In 1938, Nescafe finally produced an instant coffee that would delight consumers’ taste buds around the world.

The key to that revolutionary method’s success was keeping the coffee beans pure and natural, thus maintaining its flavor and aroma.

After all the work done in the coffee farms, green coffee beans are roasted to bring out its flavor and aroma. During roasting, the beans turn from green, to yellow, and then to different brown intensities. The coffee beans also expand to almost twice its original size. 

After roasting, the beans are ground into coarse powder to remove the coffee solids from the roasted and ground coffee. Similar to the percolator or coffeemaker at home, the coffee liquor is extracted from the roasted coffee using hot water. 

The next step in making instant coffee is to convert the coffee solution to a dry form, called drying or dehydration. Spray drying is the drying method used to produce soluble coffee powder. In spray drying, cool liquid is sprayed through a nozzle at the top of a tall drying tower. As the droplets fall, they dry, falling to the bottom of the cylinder as fine, rounded powder.

However, coffee would also inevitably lose some of its essences and aroma during the drying process. So Nescafe captures the gases released during the grinding process so it can be added later into the soluble powder before being packed.

The packing of coffee powder into jars and sachets is carried out in a special environment to prevent coffee particles from absorbing moisture in the air which would deteriorate the flavor or aroma of the coffee during storage. Thus, Nescafe stays fresh and retains its flavor much longer.

“Nescafe makes sure that our process produces 100 percent pure coffee from the finest beans,” explains Marcelino Ocampo, Nestle vice president for coffee and beverages manufacturing services. “This enables us to bring out the full, natural taste and aroma of coffee in every cup of Nescafe.”