Let’s be honest, most instant coffee is almost always bad. Harsh, bitter, flat, one-dimensional,.......bad.
The reason? It's a race to the bottom. Large-scale industrial producers opt for ever cheaper, low quality beans and then refine their processes prioritising yield and cost efficiency over quality and flavour. At Lynch’s Pantry, we took a different path — small-batch, specialty-grade instant coffee made with integrity, care, and award-winning beans. Here’s what makes our process different — and why it matters in your cup.
The Race to the Bottom - On Your Marks!
Before we tell you how instant coffee got so bad, its important to have at least a very superficial understanding of the micro-economic drivers at play. First and foremost, instant coffee is a convenience product. Think about it, if you are making a cup of instant instead of walking to a café or home brewing methods you have already decided to prioritise convenience, speed and affordability over flavour and quality.
Add to this that the instant products traditionally on offer at your supermarket are of very similar quality and format and you have a situation where, even if they wanted to, there is limited opportunity for producers to capitalise on product differentiation strategies. What is left to compete on?
The outcome is a market segment that is highly price elastic. This means that competitive forces create a situation where even a small change in price will create a significant change in consumer behaviour. So the big producers compete on price, this marketing feeds consumer perception that instant coffee is a low-cost item and the market becomes even more price-conscious.
And there we have it, the big industrial producers are on their marks , the officials have closed up, the race to the bottom is about to start.
Get Set! - Garbage In, Garbage Out
The biggest problem with commercial instant coffee starts at the beginning: the beans. If the beans were any good, they’d be sold to specialty roasters for a premium. Instead, large producers chase rock-bottom prices and buy the lowest-grade coffee available. Specialty roasters focus on flavour. Big instant brands focus on cost. You can't get good coffee out of bad beans. It really is that simple.
These industrial producers also tend to favour very dark roasts. Why? Again it’s all about yield. Darker roasts tend to be more soluble, which means that a higher quantity of dissolvable solids can be extracted. The bolder flavours of dark roasts also better survive the aggressive extraction and drying processes used by industrial instant coffee producers but you lose a lot of the character of the coffee, drowning out any bright acidity and more delicate floral or fruity notes.
At Lynch’s Pantry, our instant coffee is made from the same award-winning, specialty grade beans from Sprocket Roasters that have proudly brewed at Lynch’s Hub café since day one — including our house blend Atomic-3, the smooth Milky Way, and seasonal single origins like Ethiopian Guji. In fact, our first wholesale customer for our specialty grade instant products was Sprocket Roasters — it is a huge source of pride for us that the Sprocket team felt that our instant range represents their highly reputed specialty grade beans well enough to stock it at the roastery. To us, that’s an amazing bar to set and its exactly what we were going for with this project.
GO! - Quantity V.s Quality
If it starts bad, it gets worse. The next step in the process of making coffee is extraction. Extraction is about removing soluble compounds from the coffee using water. Much of what a barista does with grind size, temperature, brew time, water ratio etc is all about adjusting this extraction process to maximise the extraction of desirable chemical compounds that contribute positively to aroma and flavour, and minimise or control the extraction of undesirable compounds that contribute to hardness, bitterness and astringency. This is how the barista crafts a well-rounded flavour profile with a good balance of sweetness, acidity, bitterness and body.
Industrial methods throw all of this out of the window with a one-eyed focus on yield. When you dry the extraction, what you are left with is the total dissolved solids in that extraction. Using semicontinuous or continuous pressurised extractors called percolation batteries, industrial instant coffee manufacturers push extraction levels to 20–25% total dissolved solids — almost double a typical espresso. These systems use high temperatures up to 175°C (well above the 90–96°C used in specialty brewing). These high temperature processes extract undesirable compounds that result in sharp and bitter flavours, which is exactly what your barista is trying to control and minimise.
At Lynch’s Pantry, we extract our instant coffee the same way we brew at the café. All the same care, all the same craft, all the same precision that would go into your morning cup. We use espresso with a small amount of cold brew. We find that this ratio is perfect for the instant format. It gives the coffee enough punch to cut through a splash of milk or sugar but a smoother, less acidic profile that is suited to both black coffee drinkers and those who like a splash of milk.
Second Lap - More processing, more heat
Once extracted, instant coffee must be dried. This is one of the most expensive steps — so big brands cut costs by pre-concentrating the liquid (up to 60% total dissolved solids) before drying. The cheapest, and therefore almost ubiquitous method of doing this is via evaporative processes. It’s also the most damaging to the coffee flavour profile because it involves heat, and post extraction it doesn’t take a lot of heat to degrade and deteriorate the volatile compounds associated with the desirable flavours and aromas of coffee. You know how it says on the bottle in your pantry to store it in a “cool, dry place”, there’s a good reason for that.
Lynch’s Pantry instant coffees are immediately blast frozen after extraction. We use specialised equipment to tear the temperature down to -35°C as rapidly as possible to prevent any oxidation or the deterioration of volatile compounds. Then we go straight into the freeze drier. We don’t pre-concentrate and we don’t muck about either, working in small batches allows us to move really quickly through this part of the process which is important to limit the deterioration of the coffee’s flavour and characteristics. Once we blast freeze, our coffee is never in a liquid format again until you sip it and this locks in and preserves those delicate compounds.
Sprint to the Post - Spray Drying
Most commercial instant coffee is spray dried — a method that uses intense heat to rapidly remove water. It’s efficient, but it’s also brutal on flavour.
Freeze Drying involves using a temperature controlled vacuum environment to remove the water from the product via a process called sublimation. In simple terms ice is converted to water vapour without ever actually turning back into a liquid and then trapped away from the product. We will create a new blog post at some point in the future explaining how this works in more detail but for now just know that freeze drying is everything that spray drying is not. It preserves the original structure of the compounds and retains flavour and aroma. It results in longer shelf life and a vastly superior quality product.
And The Loser is .....! - The Fake Aroma Trick
To mask the damage done by aggressive processes and spray drying, many brands re-add synthetic coffee oils or aromas after drying. That “fresh coffee smell” when you open a jar? It’s artificial headspace aroma, sprayed in just before sealing. It’s a trick, a lie, its gone after the seal is broken and doesn’t impact the flavour in your cup one bit.
When you open one of our jars, the “fresh coffee” you smell is your coffee. Not fake “headspace aroma". We don't have any other tricks for you either. No artificial additives, no preservatives, no anti-caking agents. Just pure, specialty-grade instant coffee.
Even our jar sizes (30g and 60g) are different to what you will see on supermarket shelves. Big brands use large jars to cut the per unit packaging and labelling costs. But instant coffee deteriorates FAST once exposed to oxygen and atmospheric moisture. Our smaller jars help to minimise that exposure and ensure that every cup tastes its best.
So… Did We Create a Perfect Instant Coffee?
We’ll be honest: no. Instant coffee will never be a perfect replacement for a freshly brewed, barista-made specialty coffee. Drying and storage always take some kind of toll.
But what we’ve created is something that redefines what instant coffee can be — a clean, balanced, deeply flavourful experience made with real care and craft. We’ve done what we always do and kept things small-batch, focusing on the craft and the quality. We have treated a product that we have loved for years with the respect that it deserves, and this has been recognised by the artisans that craft that product. We have produced something that we are really proud of and delivers a great coffee experience whether you’re travelling, camping, working late, or just want great coffee without the fuss.
And it does so for about $1.20–$1.50 per cup.
Coming Soon: Instant vs. Home Brew — Which Wins?
In our next post, we’ll take on a new question: Can small-batch specialty grade instant coffee actually beat home brewing methods? Stay tuned.