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by Mona Gallagher

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I confess, I don't assess instant coffee on a personal level unless I've run out of real coffee and I'm desperate for my morning cup. That probably describes the majority of North American coffee drinkers, we drink it when we have nothing else in the house or we resort to buying an expensive brew from a coffee chain.

What is it about instant coffee that makes it so unpalatable? In a word, it's a reconstituted drink with artificial preservatives. There may be some people who drink instant coffee routinely, but I'm willing to wager that they are not true coffee lovers.

If you've ever had freshly ground and brewed coffee, you've experienced the aroma, filling of the senses and the building anticipation of that first cup in the morning. With instant coffee you simply heat the water and drink the brown liquid from the cup. It's an empty experience and much like comparing real lemonade made from lemons to a powdered drink.

Instant coffee extracts the flavor from coffee beans and dehydrates it to make the familiar coffee crystal or granules that is delivered to market and sold as instant coffee. An interesting fact about instant coffee is that each teaspoon contains a constant amount of caffeine and it doesn't matter how little or how much water you add, the caffeine content remains the same.

Just once, I found an off-brand instant coffee that was made from 100 percent arabica beans. That jar of instant actually was fully consumed and I have to say, it was the best instant coffee I have tasted. It wasn't on the same level with freshly brewed, but a good substitute.

The jar of instant that sets on my pantry shelf now is a name brand coffee (Folgers) and close to one year old. Folgers coffee is typically made from robusta coffee beans or perhaps a mix of robusta and arabica beans. I will either dispose of it soon or find a creative way to use it before the expiration date.

I love coffee icecream and I find that sprinkling some of the instant granules over vanilla icecream gives it a nice flavor when the ice cream softens to absorb the flavor. I've also added a quarter of a cup of concentrated instant coffee to vanilla yogurt or pudding to add coffee flavor.

If you like mocha, instant coffee works well with your chocolate drink. Add it to frosting for a bit of color, texture and taste. As strange as it sounds, I have added half a teaspoon of instant coffee granules to beef stew near the end of cooking. It gives the broth a full bodied flavor of course, the coffee taste is indistinguishable.

I will drink instant coffee if nothing else is available, but bring on the fresh brewed and let's celebrate the wonderful flavor of coffee.

Learn more about this author, Mona Gallagher.

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