Coffee 101: Is Instant Coffee Bad for You?

Q: Is instant coffee bad for your health? Or to say, does instant coffee have the same health benefits as brewed coffee?

A: In fact, whether instant coffee or brewed coffee has its positive as well as negative effects for its caffeine content. It is unscientific to conclude that instant coffee is bad for your health.  Chemically, instant coffee and brewed coffee are virtually the same. There are no added chemicals or additives in instant coffee that may be bad for your health.

Now, let’s dig in what is instant coffee and how to drink instant coffee healthily.

Instant coffee, also called soluble coffee, coffee crystals and coffee powder, is prepared by either freeze-drying or spray-drying after brewing coffee beans. It’s easy to make a cup of instant coffee by simply pouring the instant coffee powder into hot water.

To drink instant coffee healthily, you should be careful of your caffeine intake. Caffeine itself is not necessarily dangerous and in fact it renders a handful of health benefits. Some scientific evidence exists to show that people who drink moderate cups of instant coffee per day have a lesser chance of developing heart disease than those who don’t. A study surveyed 129,000 people over 20 years and found that those who drank 4 cups or more a day were significantly less likely to die from heart disease.

However, too much caffeine intake is harmful to your health. It is reported that a cup of instant coffee has less caffeine than freshly brewed one. So, it is less opportunity to consume too much caffeine. But if you are drinking too many cups than recommended, you will suffer from irritability, palpitations and insomnia. It is suggested to consuming 400 mg caffeine per day. From the article “How many mg of caffeine in a cup of coffee”, you may know a cup of  8 oz instant coffee contains roughly 30-90 mg caffeine. By this standard, 4-5 cups of instant coffee per day is OK.

In summary, currently there is no evidence that instant coffee poses any risks to your health. As long as you are drinking in a moderate rate, you will benefit from it. And also, you shouldn’t have any worries that instant coffee is anymore unhealthy than regular coffee. Just enjoy your cup of instant coffee!