Susie O’Brien: Wake up and smell the crazy in the coffee industry

THERE’S no doubt Victorians are spoiled for choice when it comes to great coffee but you may be surprised to know instant coffee is more sustainable than fancy espresso or all the pod machines with their over-packaged capsules, writes Susie O’Brien.

Coffee shops these days are full of tricks to establish how hip they really are.

CHANCES are you’re reading this with a warm brew in your hand.

Perhaps it’s a single-roasted double-shot of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe with Austrian goat milk and Madagascar cinnamon?

A double-shot doppio with “geisha particularities” in a chocolate-lined leak-proof cone?

A room-temperature soy milk Cuban served in test tubes that you mixed yourself?

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No doubt you’re feeling a little glow of satisfaction that your hot beverage not only tastes amazing but is environmentally sustainable as well.

In recent years the coffee industry has been trumping its green credentials. It’s not just about fair trade but direct trade and every drop must be certified by the Rainforest Alliance, or even better, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Centre.

Cafes are charging less if you bring your own cup and are increasingly using biodegradable cups. It may take 17 gazillion years, but they will break down eventually.

Coffee shops these days are full of tricks to establish how hip they really are.

There’s no doubt Victorians are spoiled for choice when it comes to great coffee, with a plethora of cafes like Brother Baba Budan, Little Mule, Operator 28 and Biggie Smalls.

There’s something a little try-hard about it all — and I don’t just mean the silly names.

You know the joke. How did the hipster burn her tongue? She drank her coffee before it was cool.

Coffee shops these days are full of tricks to establish how hip they really are. Some places will charge you $5 for a teaspoon of Nutella and make you pay extra for a “deconstructed” coffee you have to pour yourself.

Take, for instance, the Matcha Mylkbar, which is billed as a “plant-based eatery” with a “minimalist industrial chic theme” that guarantees a “new Instagramable spot”.

You can have purple peanut butter latte, a smoothie called “When Daenerys wears Lycra” and mock “konjac” bacon.

(Why do vegans insist on eating food that looks like meat?)

Just don’t go to any of these places and ask for an International Roast white-with-one.

Being green is a big part of the mission of such places; it has to be the right coffee sourced from the right location in the right way. It proves they’re better than you and me.

Instant coffee, especially the kind that comes in tins rather than glass jars, is mass-produced efficiently.

They’re full of coffee-loving enviro warriors who have a regular “coffice” where they spend a lot of time comparing the three tribes of flavour profiles from Lotus Eater beans sourced from a single-origin Nigerian farm.

At home, they have industrial-grade Saeco or DeLonghi coffee machines with in-built grinders, pressure controllers and cup-warmers. Or they’re “pod people” spending hundreds of dollars a month on fancy Nespresso pods with flavours like Kazaar, Dharkan and Aflorazio.

All of this was unthinkable two decades ago back when you were judged on the brand of instant coffee you bought. We looked down on those who drank Nescafe — you might get 43 beans in every cup but most of them were awful.

Moccona was a sign of class. Getting invited up for a Moccona was a sign your date night was about to take a turn for the better.

So, you may be surprised to know that instant coffee is more sustainable than all the pod
machines and their over-packaged capsules and fancy espresso machines in cafes with their huge enviro footprints.

It might not fit the trendy hipster ethos, but instant is greener.

According to analysis from The Conversation’s Maartje Sevenster, a research scientist in climate smart agriculture at the CSIRO, it’s not just about the coffee, but every step involved in brewing.

Moccona was a sign of class. Getting invited up for a Moccona was a sign your date night was about to take a turn for the better.

Sevenster found the most environmentally sound cup of coffee comes when you boil a kettle with only as much water as you need and use instant coffee. Plunger coffee that was the height of sophistication in the 1980s is also very green if you drink the whole pot instead of just one cup.

Instant coffee, especially the kind that comes in tins rather than glass jars, is mass-produced efficiently.

It’s much more sustainable than pods, which are very wasteful due to the packaging and the fact that people rarely ever recycle them, Sevenster found.

Giant coffee machines used in cafes also use a lot of power and water in the brewing and milk steaming process. They’re much less green than the old-style office urn, which only has its contents changed once a decade.

OK, so it may taste like crap, but at least it’s not trying to be something it’s not.

It’s time to wake up and smell the BS from the coffee industry and give those 43 beans another go.

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Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist

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