How many of you like instant coffee?

by chee Leng (on coffee makers)
(Singapore)

Instant coffee, wouldn't even termed them as coffee! This is one of the most common response that I get when I bring up the subject on instant coffee.

Unless it is brewed by an expensive machine that is thousands over dollars and prepared by award winning baristas, the coffee can never be good.

That is what some "coffee lovers" say.

Then again, many people disagree with it. I wrote many articles about why instant coffee is still the favorite among many coffee lovers and here are some numbers from an emerging market to support my view.

Indonesia has a total coffee retail market value of US$ 670 million per annual. And even without factoring in the freeze dried, and bottled solution, the instant 3-in-1 is close to USD$ 200 million!

And this is growing by 20% year on year. That is a growth of USD$ 24 million per year!

How many gourmet coffee stores or even entire coffee machines company can boast of this level of organic growth?

This data is not complied by oncoffeemakers.com, but Euromonitor International, renowned for their data and analysis.

Indonesia has a population of about 240 million and that means on average every person spends about USD$ 5 on coffee and USD$ 1 on instant coffee.

For a country with a low GDP, this is a significant amount of disposable cash being spend on coffee, and particularly instant coffee.

I do not know how much coffee chains or coffee roasting companies invested in their business. I have always touch on the millions that Nescafe invested into their instant coffee solution to make it better.

To produce coffee for Indonesia, Super and Petra Food is investing $1.5 million into this venture and they are not a big player.

So, the funds that goes behind instant coffee is huge and the technology that support it is anything but simple.

My $0.02 remains the same. There is no best coffee and instant coffee is definitely not a lousy coffee (at least to me).

The most important thing about coffee is the experience, to be able to afford a coffee and drink it as a pleasure.

That is what the instant coffee companies are doing, bring this coffee pleasure to many folks in emerging markets.

And judging by the numbers, the folks in Indonesia loves Instant coffee -so, this coffee is the best coffee to many folks in Indonesia...