According to a recent report in New Scientist, instant coffee is better for the environment than filter coffee. Dr Dave Reay has calculated that filter coffee has a much larger carbon footprint than its instant counterpart.

I must say I’m a little confused with the report’s findings. Surely as instant coffee undergoes far more processes than filter coffee, before it reaches our cup, that it would require more energy to produce. Essentially, instant coffee is second-hand coffee: it’s brewed in a factory, then dehydrated before being aromatised and packaged, ready to be brewed again by the end consumer.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to read the original report (its not available for free on the internet), just an article on it in the Telegraph. So I’m not entirely sure what assumptions Dr Reay has based his calculations on. It would be interesting to know what he classes as an average cup of filter coffee.
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