Southland Innovation: The Instant Coffee Story
If you are a coffee drinker, at some stage of your caffeine loving career you are likely to have had an instant coffee. The dry, crunchy substance that melts in hot water to instantly give you a quick caffeine hit and a taste of coffee goodness - no matter whether you are camping, miles from a cafe or feeling a little bit lazy to make an espresso.
Instant coffee is a huge part of our New Zealand coffee story, but few people know that this is all thanks to Invercargill’s David Strang and his genius creation in 1889 for soluble coffee powder. In 1889, coffee and spice merchant Strang, created his `Dry Hot-Air` process to convert coffee into soluble granules and then set about patenting it in 1890 - one of the first-ever applications of New Zealand's new patent laws which only just came into effect. ‘Strang’s Patent Soluble Dry Coffee-powder’ as it was called, had the advantage that it was easier and lighter to ship while also having a good shelf life. He packaged it in tins, as he did with his other spice products, and set about marketing and distributing his new invention.
Like many inventions, there was some confusion as to the originator of instant coffee, and for many years a Japanese scientist called Satori Kato working in the USA in 1901 was given the credit for it. It wasn't for 10 years that Strang gained proper recognition for his revolutionary introduction. While Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt claimed Strang is a “hero” and said, “it wasn't unusual for the town's legends to go unheralded due to our geographic isolation.” **
Following Strang's invention, others have created new and different ways of making instant coffee, with techniques such as free drying and spray drying being the most popular methods today. Indeed, Strang's technique for creating instant coffee is no longer the favoured approach, with other mechanisms proving more efficient. At the time, however, Strang's technique for creating coffee was new, and even the coffee snobs of the time were complimentary, with the Otago Daily Times of the day saying 'None of its natural fragrance is destroyed, as is undeniably the case with the vast majority of extracts and essences` because Strang believes that “the most important thing about good coffee is that you like it."
Next time you go to reach for that jar of coffee think of Strang and the global phenomenon that came from the bottom of the world. Southland innovation in the history books.
Image credit: From the collection of Owaka Museum Wahi Kahuika The Meeting Place "a rest on your journey".
** https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/8086581/Instant-coffee-invented-down-south