In conditions when time is equivalent to money, many have to sacrifice for its economy. For example, the unsurpassed taste of natural coffee.
Yes, to feel this taste, you need to try hard. Collect, clean and dry coffee beans. Properly fry them, grind, cook. The whole ritual, having a lot of subtleties and tricks.
What can I say, even if you buy already assembled, roasted and ground coffee in a store, there is often still not enough time to prepare it. And sometimes special knowledge.
One has to be content with instant coffee, which, although inferior in taste and aroma, is prepared in less than a minute and under any conditions. But since we have to compromise, we will choose the best of alternative proposals. Is it true that freeze-dried coffee is anyway, what is natural?
First, let's see what types of instant coffee are.
- Powder. They do it like this: for a certain time they process the grains with a stream of hot water. Then the resulting infusion is filtered and sprayed in special chambers filled with hot gas. Drops of coffee liquid curl up, dry, and powder is obtained.
- Granulated. It is made according to the same principle, but the powder is poured over with hot steam, as a result of which granules are formed.
- And finally, natural freeze-dried coffee, which we will discuss later.
Freeze-dried coffee is instant coffee made by the technology of dry freezing. The fried grains are crushed and boiled for three hours in special sealed containers. In this case, the vapor does not fly into the air, but in a special way is discharged using pipes. It is needed to extract aromatic substances that are found in the essential oils of coffee beans.
Next, the boiled coffee mass is frozen using fast freezing technologies, and then dehydrated using vacuum under low pressure. It turns out a fairly dense briquette. It is crushed and the same irregular pyramid crystals are obtained.
However, these crystals have no aroma, and what coffee without aroma! Here the manufacturer can go in two ways: to use essential oils collected from steam or artificial flavors. Needless to say, the second option is much cheaper, but its quality is appropriate.
As you can see, such a technology is much more complex and more energy intensive. Consequently, instant freeze-dried coffee is quite an expensive pleasure compared to granulated and, especially, powder.
Although this type of instant coffee is the best, the quality of coffee produced by different companies varies. The reason may be in poor-quality raw materials, violation of technology, the use of flavorings, etc. The question arises: "Which freeze-dried coffee is better?" Until you try and choose your own, you won’t get an answer to this question, because they don’t argue about tastes. But buying low-quality goods can be avoided if you take into account some factors.
- If the packaging is clear, inspect the granules. They should be large enough and have a light brown color. There should be no powder at the bottom of the can, since its presence indicates that the technology was violated during the production process.
- The material of which the packaging is made is not important for the safety of instant coffee. The main thing is that it be airtight. No cracks on transparent packaging, no rust on metal, etc.
- The composition should include coffee and only it. Chicory, barley, “identical to natural” components and other additives are not there, unless you intentionally buy coffee with certain properties.
- Compare the dates of manufacture and packaging. The smaller the difference, the better. Moreover, the total shelf life should not be more than two years.
So, freeze-dried coffee is instant coffee, prepared according to a special technology that allows you to maintain the highest possible taste and aromatic qualities for such a "coffee form". If at hand there are no Turks and coffee beans, but only a jar of instant coffee, then let it be sublimated.