Words About Things

The new Nestle intant coffee advert is a true triumph of marketing. It attempts to convince the viewer that their freeze dried soluble coffee substitute is ‘fresh’ and ‘bright’ and ‘Coffee’. The advert features a man trekking through the jungle catching glowing coffee beans in a jar with a sense of wonder. The tag line is ‘Nescafe – Coffee at its brightest’.

Anybody who has even consumed a cup of instant coffee knows it is anything but bright. It has a bland one-dimensional flavour with no depth. The taste is in no way comparable to  real, great Coffee. I understand that there is a place for instant coffee, I even keep some in the house for emergencies/ unwanted guests, but there is no way is can possibly be considered fresh. Most instant Coffee is made from 100% Coffee beans with nothing added but the process is far from natural. Freeze drying involves:

Agglomerated wet coffee granules are rapidly frozen (slow freezing leads to large ice crystals and a porous product and can also affect the colour of the coffee granules).

Frozen coffee is placed in the drying chamber, often on metal trays.

A vacuum is created within the chamber. The strength of the vacuum is critical in the speed of the drying and therefore the quality of the product. Care must be taken to produce a vacuum of suitable strength.

The drying chamber is warmed, most commonly by radiation but conduction is used in some plants and convection has been proposed in some small pilot plants. A possible problem with convection is uneven drying rates within the chamber, which would give an inferior product.

Condensation – the previously frozen water in the coffee granules expands to ten times its previous volume. The removal of this water vapour from the chamber is vitally important, making the condenser the most critical and expensive component in a freeze drying plant.

The freeze-dried granules are removed from the chamber and packaged.

None of this really matters of course, if people want to drink instant Coffee it’s their loss but it’s no big deal. Nestles human rights record is however a big deal. Nestle recently began buying milk from a farm owned by Robert Mugabe’s Wife Grace. The farm was seized from its original (white) owners in order to be given to landless black Zimbabweans along with many other farms in Zimbabwe, this never happened however and now Nestle are directly paying the Mugabes.

Nestle has previously caused controversy by marketing Intant Milk to mothers in developing countries. They allegedly encouraged mothers to use formula rather than breast milk despite the possible risks from mixing milk powder with unclean water. There is nothing ‘bright’ about that.