The History of Instant Coffee: War, Industry, and Culture in a Powder

In 1943, tucked inside the field packs of American soldiers deployed along the Italian front was a small tin. Inside was brown powder — add hot water, and within seconds you had coffee. The soldiers called it “Nescafé,” and the U.S. Army purchased over one million cases a year, sending the entire production run straight to the front lines.^[1] In the trenches where it was impossible to brew coffee the conventional way, the powdered drink was more than a beverage — it was a psychological lifeline for getting through the day.

Yet long before instant coffee found its role as battlefield ration, attempts to invent this technology had begun in an entirely different context. Tracing those origins reveals an international dispute over who deserves credit for the invention, the way war accelerated technology, and how a company from a small country changed coffee culture worldwide.

Who Invented Instant Coffee? — Competing Origins

The question of who invented instant coffee is less straightforward than it might seem. For a long time, the honor was attributed to Japanese-American chemist Satori Kato (加藤). Working out of Chicago, Kato filed a patent application in April 1901 at the U.S. Patent Office for a “Coffee concentrate and process of making same,” which was officially registered on August 11, 1903, as U.S. Patent No. 735777.^[2] That same year, the Kato Coffee Company introduced the product to the public at the Pan-American Exposition held in Buffalo.^[2]

Recent historical research, however, has uncovered a pioneer twelve years ahead of Kato. David Strang of Invercargill, New Zealand, developed a method in 1889 to convert coffee into a soluble powder using a “Dry Hot-Air Process,” registering it as New Zealand Patent No. 3518 in 1890.^[3] Strang’s patent was one of the earliest examples filed just after New Zealand’s modern patent laws came into force, and his “Strang’s Patent Soluble Dry Coffee-powder” carried the practical advantage of being easy to transport and long-lasting. But Strang’s invention never achieved commercial reach in its time, and as Kato’s American patent gained wider visibility, Kato long enjoyed the reputation of being the “first” inventor.^[3]

More interesting than the debate over who deserves credit is the fact that neither man succeeded in bringing the product to a mass market. Instant coffee would find its first genuine popular audience through an entirely different figure.

G. Washington’s Coffee and the First World War

Belgian-British inventor George Constant Louis Washington (1871–1946) brought the first commercially available instant coffee to market in 1909 under the name “Red E Coffee,” then relaunched it the following year as “G. Washington’s Prepared Coffee.”^[4] Sharing his name with America’s first president gave him a distinct advantage in attracting consumer attention.

What truly elevated Washington’s coffee into a mass-consumption product, however, was not marketing — it was war. When the First World War (1914–1918) broke out, the U.S. Army incorporated G. Washington Coffee into soldiers’ field rations.^[4] Even in trenches where lighting a fire was difficult, this coffee — ready in seconds with just hot water — won tremendous loyalty from troops. They called it a “cup of George.”^[4] After the war ended, veterans who had grown accustomed to instant coffee returned home, and the drink began working its way into everyday American household life.

The Birth of Nescafé: A Solution to Brazil’s Coffee Surplus

In 1929, the collapse of the New York stock market sent global commodity prices into freefall. Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer, found itself sitting on mountains of unsold coffee beans. The Brazilian government approached Swiss food company Nestlé with a request: develop a method to process the surplus beans into a powder that could be preserved long-term.^[5]

Nestlé’s coffee specialist Max Morgenthaler took up the challenge. After eight years of sustained research, his team developed an instant coffee that preserved the original flavor as faithfully as possible while requiring nothing more than water to prepare. The product launched on April 1, 1938, in Switzerland under the name “Nescafé” — a portmanteau of Nestlé and Café — which remains one of the world’s most recognized coffee brands to this day.^[5]

What set Nescafé apart from earlier instant coffees was taste. Where Kato’s and Washington’s products were criticized for failing to capture the genuine flavor of coffee beans, Nescafé achieved a superior result by blending bean concentrate with corn syrup in a 1:1 ratio before spray-drying.^[5] This differentiation, combined with the outbreak of the Second World War, would carry Nescafé to the fastest growth in its history.

World War II and Nescafé as Military Supply

When the United States formally entered the Second World War in 1941, Nescafé became a strategic military commodity. The U.S. Army supply system mandated Nescafé’s inclusion in soldiers’ field rations before deployment,^[6] and within just one year the military purchased over one million cases — equivalent to the entire annual output of Nescafé’s American factories.^[1] The civilian market was effectively cut off from supply.

Paradoxically, this military consumption became an enormous marketing opportunity for Nescafé. Millions of soldiers around the world drank Nescafé in the field and came away accustomed to instant coffee; after returning home as civilians, they became loyal customers in the consumer market. Once the war ended, Nescafé was also included in CARE packages — postwar reconstruction aid for Japan and Europe — planting coffee culture in regions where it had scarcely taken hold.^[6]

The British case is particularly notable. In a country traditionally dominated by tea culture, wartime rationing and the distribution of instant coffee together began forming a coffee-drinking habit. Today, 80% of British households keep instant coffee on hand at all times,^[7] a concrete imprint left on the country’s beverage culture by the war.

The Freeze-Dry Revolution: Solving the Flavor Problem Through Technology

The spray-drying method pioneered by Nescafé in 1938 was well suited to mass production, but it had one critical flaw: the high-temperature hot air that drove the process stripped away a significant portion of the coffee’s aromatic compounds. Spray-dried instant coffee struggled to deliver what people expected from roasted coffee, and this limitation established the perception of instant coffee as a drink of compromise.

The technology that resolved this problem was freeze-drying. The process works by rapidly freezing concentrated coffee liquid to below minus 40 degrees Celsius, then removing moisture in a vacuum by sublimating the ice directly into vapor — bypassing the liquid phase entirely. Because no high heat is involved, far less of the aromatic character is lost, and the resulting coffee granules dissolve cleanly and maintain a better texture. The underlying technology developed as a byproduct of plasma-preservation research during the Second World War.^[8]

Freeze-dried coffee reached commercial markets in the early 1960s. Maxwell House launched a freeze-dried product called “Maxim” in 1963, opening the category,^[8] and two years later, in 1965, Nestlé countered with “Nescafé Gold Blend.” Both products led with “richer, fresher coffee aroma” as their central promise, shaking up the established instant coffee market.^[8]

Freeze-dried coffee’s arrival represented more than a quality improvement — it marked a turning point in how consumers perceived instant coffee. A market began forming around instant coffee as something worth choosing, not merely settling for.

The Invention of Coffee Mix: From Korea to the World

While freeze-drying technology was stoking a quality race in developed markets, an entirely different kind of innovation was unfolding on the other side of the world. In 1970, Korea’s Dongsuh Foods entered a technology licensing agreement with America’s General Foods and began producing instant coffee.^[9] But Korean consumers had a distinctive pattern of consumption. Rather than visiting coffee shops equipped to brew coffee, they far more commonly drank coffee at work, in the military, or at home — and there was latent demand for a product that could be prepared in a single step, without the inconvenience of measuring out powdered creamer and sugar separately.

In 1974, Dongsuh Foods developed “Prima,” Korea’s first coffee creamer, securing a key ingredient. Then, in December 1976, the world’s first 3-in-1 coffee mix — blending coffee powder, creamer, and sugar in a pre-measured ratio — was launched.^[9] The product first appeared under the Maxwell House license as “Maxwell House Coffee Mix,” and later evolved into its own brand identity as “Maxim.” Korea’s Intellectual Property Office recognized the coffee mix as fifth among “inventions that made Korea shine,” reflecting its place as a pivotal turning point in the democratization of coffee in Korean society.^[9]

The global significance of coffee mix lies not simply in its success in Korea. The format — single-serve stick packets containing pre-blended coffee, sugar, and creamer — became the standard form of instant coffee across Southeast Asia. The vast majority of instant coffee products sold in Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and throughout the region have adopted this stick-format 3-in-1 configuration.^[10] Unit prices below $0.25 made daily consumption accessible even to lower-income households, and in these markets instant coffee moved from luxury item to everyday staple.^[10]

The Global Map of Instant Coffee

A look at how instant coffee is consumed around the world reveals a strikingly different cultural context in each region.

In the United Kingdom, instant coffee is a daily drink that coexists alongside tea culture. Eighty percent of British households keep it in stock,^[7] and a substantial share of coffee consumed at home is made with instant. As already noted, this is partly a legacy of wartime supply, but it also aligns with a distinctly British pragmatic drinking culture that prizes speed and convenience.

Japan has developed a market in which canned coffee and instant coffee coexist alongside a unique vending machine culture. Japan’s instant coffee market is projected to reach approximately $4.56 billion by 2030,^[11] and among younger generations there is a growing preference for premium freeze-dried instant products.

In Southeast Asia, Vietnam and the Philippines have shown particularly strong growth. Vietnam, the world’s second-largest instant coffee exporter, processes 90% of its output by spray-drying,^[10] and the region’s annual consumption growth rate has held steadily around 3%. In 2024, the global instant coffee market stood at approximately $36.51 billion, with instant coffee accounting for roughly 30% of all coffee consumed.^[12]

Notably, in countries with deeply rooted espresso culture — Italy — and in Northern Europe’s coffee-powerhouse nations, instant coffee is still treated as a drink of compromise. In these regions, keeping instant coffee at home can even carry the implication of someone who “doesn’t really know coffee.” Cultural attitudes toward instant coffee differ sharply from one place to the next.

Instant Coffee in the Specialty Era: Compromise or Reinvention?

From the 2000s onward, as the specialty coffee movement grew, instant coffee bore the stigma of being “a drink for people who don’t really love coffee.” The specialty ethos — single-origin beans, precision extraction variables, the skill of the barista — appeared to represent the exact opposite philosophy from something you simply dissolve in water.

Yet from the late 2010s, a movement emerged within the specialty coffee world itself: reimagining instant coffee on specialty terms. Swift Cup Coffee, headquartered in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, developed an instant coffee using specialty-grade single-origin beans and a slow freeze-drying process designed to preserve flavor as completely as possible.^[13] Cusa Coffee produces its instant coffee through a proprietary process that cold-brews at room temperature using pressure, then removes moisture under vacuum.^[13] A product that scored 97 out of 100 on global coffee quality metrics — this is what instant coffee can become.

The growth of this “premium instant” or “specialty instant” category is tied to modern consumption patterns: hikers, travelers, and office workers who want to enjoy quality coffee in diverse settings without any equipment. Specialty coffee drinkers choosing instant coffee for camping trips or business travel is no longer a contradiction.

The intriguing irony is that the specialty coffee world — which long criticized instant coffee most sharply — is now drawing it into its own territory. This is less a “rehabilitation” of instant coffee than evidence that the spectrum of coffee technology is simply widening.

What Remains in the Powder

Read the history of instant coffee as a straight line, and it looks like a story of progress — better technology producing better products. Look more closely, and other narratives emerge layered beneath it. The international contest over who deserves credit for the invention. The way war spread a particular beverage across the globe. The logic by which price and accessibility determine consumption culture. And the matter of class-inflected taste in the debate over what “good coffee” even means.

The reason David Strang’s dry coffee powder, made in a corner of New Zealand in 1890, failed to reach a mass market was not a lack of technology — it was the absence of distribution networks and timing. Satori Kato’s patent gained wider recognition because of the visibility afforded by the American market and the stage of an international exposition. George Washington’s coffee sold not on the strength of its taste but out of the necessity of war. Nescafé became the global standard because the company’s capabilities intersected at precisely the right historical moment with the Second World War. And the combination of three ingredients that a Korean company packed into a small stick sachet became the basic unit of coffee consumption across a Southeast Asia of hundreds of millions — evidence that price and convenience are more powerful market forces than flavor or quality.

Instant coffee is still changing. Only the direction of that change is not singular.