Can I drink expired instant coffee?

Coffee is indispensable for working people in their daily lives, because coffee can relieve people's fatigue to a certain extent and allow people to have the energy to continue working. This is also one of the advantages of coffee. So, can you drink expired instant coffee? If you don’t know, you can try drinking expired coffee. Of course, for the sake of our health, it is best not to do so. Next, let us find out whether expired instant coffee can be drunk?

It depends on the condition of the expired coffee, how long it has been past expiration, and how you stored it. First of all, if the coffee has gone bad after opening it, you certainly can’t drink it. Secondly, if you live in a relatively humid and hot climate, it is best not to drink the coffee after opening the package and not following the storage requirements. Ultimately, if it's not too long past its expiration date, it's fine to drink it, especially if you stored it properly, so you can drink it whenever you want.

Coffee is a shrub of the Rubiaceae family. The fruit of the coffee tree is a semicircular seed with grooves. After being roasted, it is made into coffee powder, which is brown in color and has a special aroma. The coffee powder can be drunk after being boiled. If the juice is concentrated and then dried, it becomes instant coffee.

Counterfeit coffee is made by mixing chicory root powder into real coffee, or by adding roasted and crushed grains or beans. Real coffee contains caffeine and has a special aroma. Poor quality coffee is usually expired or poorly sealed, causing it to clump due to moisture. Its aroma and taste change significantly, often disappearing and having an unpleasant taste. There are also people who grind coffee powder into fine powder and pretend it is instant coffee. In fact, the two processes are different. Instant coffee is made by concentrating coffee water and spray drying it. The process is complicated. It dissolves immediately after brewing, and there is no floating matter or residue. Although coffee powder is ground very finely, there will be floating objects and sediment after brewing, which cannot be swallowed and can only be blown into it. It is also common to alter the expiration date on instant coffee packaging. The shelf life of instant coffee is generally two years.

Instant coffee is pure coffee obtained by roasting and crushing coffee beans, which is then extracted and vacuum concentrated to form powdered coffee. It can be brewed at any time and dissolves immediately in boiling water. Sensory identification of the quality of instant coffee can be carried out in two stages: before and after brewing.

(1) Identification before brewing

Good quality instant coffee - its color is brown to dark brown, depending on the variety and process; its texture is irregular particles about 2 mm in size, mixed with some fine powder; it has a unique aroma due to the Maillard reaction during frying. 

Inferior instant coffee - dark in color, some are iron black; the texture is clumping or agglomerated due to moisture or other reasons; the roasted aroma of the coffee is weak or not detectable at all, replaced by a strong burnt smell. 

(2) Identification after brewing

Good quality instant coffee - dissolves completely without residue or suspended matter; the coffee juice is bright brown in color; has a strong coffee aroma; has a pleasant bitter and sour taste after adding sugar, and has a refreshing flavor. 

Poor quality instant coffee: after dissolving, there is sediment at the bottom of the cup; the color of the coffee is dark, brown-black (under the same concentration); the aroma is light, but the burnt taste is strong; after adding sugar, the coffee tastes bitter and sour, especially the bitter aftertaste.

Can I drink expired instant coffee? By answering this question, we can know a lot about coffee. So in our daily life, we should pay attention to this. Although coffee has many benefits, we'd better drink less coffee as much as possible. Drinking too much coffee will gradually weaken our nerves.