Instant coffee: the fine line between energy and insomnia

Instant coffee: the exact dose separating stimulation from insomnia

Two teaspoons in 200 ml of water. There lies the border. Below it, the cup wakes you up just enough and the taste is pleasant. Above it, nervousness spikes and the night is lost. This empirical adjustment, made through trial and error on any random Friday, summarizes the return to instant coffee for those who had taken refuge in infusions and tea for years. The family pantry held cans of peas, corn, canned sausages, and Nescafé Extraforte bought during the peak of hoarding. Now comes the time to consume what was about to expire. And the conclusion is uncomfortable for the gourmet palate: it tastes good.

Instant, torrefied, and other coffee heresies

The defense of instant coffee quickly clashes with orthodoxy. Some declare that instant coffee is trash and that the initial problem was choosing Nescafé, "the most low-quality stuff." The hierarchy that emerges is ruthless: if it's instant, it's not coffee, it's an extract; if it's torrefied, it's burnt sugar; if it's decaf, it's chemistry; if it's not 100% Arabica, it's a mutation; if it has milk, it's colored milk; and if it's not produced by spray drying, it's weak tea. A purity ladder that leaves the average consumer without the right to a cup.

In contrast, practical experience. Freeze-dried coffees retain quite a bit of flavor, and there are instant brands—Mount Hagen, Saimaza—that hold up a black coffee without sugar when there's nothing else around. The trick with instant coffee isn't the bean but the logistics: €1.20 per jar yielding a hundred lightly brewed coffees, or two hundred if you dose it stingily. Two cents per dose. Unbeatable in the league of savings.

Is coffee an entry drug?

The warning comes early: coffee is addictive, generates tolerance, and requires higher doses. From there to methadone, estimulante ilegal, or bazuko, one step. The irony runs through the entire exchange: forty years of daily consumption and no trace of heroin; twenty-five years of strong coffees and zero temptations to smoke base. The door-to-entry argument dismantles itself with the biography of anyone who has kept the coffee maker running for decades.

What does appear is functional dependence. Some cannot conceive of the workday without the kick at 7:45 AM. And others argue that caffeine is a stimulant with measurable effects, not a placebo, although intellectual and sports performance improves moderately. Coffee extends life, say the cited studies; instant coffee may not be the best way, but it administers the caffeine shot instantly.

Italian coffee maker, stove, and the roast you can't ask for

Domestic technique has its own liturgy. The steel Moka pot beats the aluminum one. And some go further: camping gas stove with a single burner, €25 investment plus €3 per bottle, because the result changes the movie. Bar coffee, meanwhile, reveals itself da repelús as soon as you try the real thing.

The most instructive testimony comes from the countryside. A producing family roasts the bean in a pot over fire, as one does a barbecue here. Asking for a roast without sugar—what the imagination calls natural roast—clashes with the response of a 73-year-old woman who learned from her parents: "that can't be done, the coffee won't be worth anything." Nor is it stored in beans: it is roasted and ground until the end. The supreme quality sought by the urban consumer does not always coincide with what those who have produced it their whole life do.

Sugar, chicory, and ColaCao

The sugar war deserves a separate chapter. Adding it, orthodoxy claims, ruins the energizing effect. But instant coffee with condensed milk and cinnamon rules, and instant coffee mixed with piloncillo falls into the category of guilt-free pleasure. For those who don't seek stimulation but companionship, chicory works better than coffee with milk.

There remains the fundamental division, splitting humanity in two: those who consume coffee and those who drink ColaCao. And a health warning that should not be overlooked: coffee increases heart rate, pulse rates vary throughout the day, and the international scientific community publishes studies linking it to benefits. There are also those who maintain that a morning apple beats it. The evidence, as almost always, depends on who you ask.

The exact point where this gets stuck is the same as at the beginning: no one has fixed the universal dose. Two teaspoons work for one and keep another awake. The border between stimulation and insomnia remains a private calculation, done blindly, cup by cup.