Early History of Instant CoffeeThe early history of instant coffee is linked to wars; military commanders had long sought a way to give their troops in the field a caffeine boost without having to carry along cumbersome brewing equipment.
The earliest experiments with and patents for instant coffee date to the Civil War; further experiments were conducted during the Spanish American War.
As an outgrowth of these experiments, a European immigrant name George Washington produced the first commercially viable instant coffee in the United States beginning in 1906.
The G. Washington Coffee Company continued to sell instant coffee in the US market into the 1940s.
Instant coffee received a further boosts during World War I, when the US Army purchased it for some of its troops in Europe.
By most accounts, this early instant coffee was a poor quality and had a somewhat foul taste.
The first major advance in instant coffee production occurred in the 1930s, when Nestle technicians, in consultation with Brazilian coffee official trying to find ways to dispose off their huge coffee stockpiles, realized that the spray-drying technology they used to produce powdered milk could be adapted for the production of powdered instant coffee.
Nestle built an instant coffee factory in the United States in 1939.
Commercial development of instant coffee for the consumer market was interrupted by World War II, but at the same time , the US government provided a huge stimulus of the development of the industry by making instant coffee a standard component of the rations given to US troops and purchasing massive quantities of it.
Early History of Instant Coffee