According to a release, Blue Bottle Coffee, which is majority owned by Nestlé, is launching an instant espresso that will allow consumers to prepare luxury beverages at home without the need for expensive machinery or brewing knowledge.
After three years of research, Craft Instant Espresso, the brand’s first soluble coffee product in the United States, is prepared by combining pre-ground espresso beans with milk.
Nestle paid $425 million bought a roughly 70% interest in California-based Blue Bottle Coffee five years ago, giving the food and beverage giant another premium option as it expanded its coffee footprint.
Nestlé has identified coffee as a critical growth pillar and has been working hard to meet that objective.
Nestlé recently bought the Seattle’s Best Coffee brand from Starbucks for an unknown sum, enhancing its visibility in popular beverage offerings.
However, Blue Bottle, well renowned for its speciality coffee beans and retail locations, clearly falls within the premium sector.
The latest instant coffee for creating espressos fills a gap by allowing the brand to compete in a more portable sector that is becoming increasingly popular with on-the-go consumers who value convenience. Instead of going out to a coffee shop or turning on their coffee machine, people just add milk and get an instant espresso almost anywhere, including at home.
“We didn’t think instant coffee at Blue Bottle standards was possible,” said Benjamin Brewer, senior director of global innovation and quality at Blue Bottle, in an email. “But our initial experimentation with soluble proved the path to instant could be something moving and inspiring for our guests, if handled correctly.”
“It was critical for us to own the process from beginning to end so that we could ensure our high-quality requirements were met at every stage.”
Craft Instant Espresso also allows Nestlé to broaden its instant coffee options to a broader variety of consumers. Nescafe is one of Nestlé’s best-selling products. It has flourished in the face of rising inflation because it is popular with lower-income clients. Nescafé contributed to an almost double-digit growth rate in drinks in North America over the first nine months of the year, the business reported last week.
Blue Bottle had to tread cautiously while developing its first instant espresso to create a soluble product that fit its high reputation. Rather of relying on a corporate distributor, which manufactures the majority of instant coffee on the market today, Blue Bottle claimed it used its 20 years of experience in sourcing, roasting, and brewing to “reimagine” the instant process. It focused two procedures, extraction and drying, to make a higher-quality, better-tasting coffee.
As the Blue Bottle brand expands beyond its café roots, espresso might be the start of quick coffees. “Instant coffee gives a straightforward entry point into the world of speciality coffee, and we look forward to expanding our Craft Instant Coffee portfolio while always leading with flavour,” added Brewer.
Blue Bottle’s Craft Instant Espresso is not inexpensive. A 12-serving jar will soon be available for $25, or five pre-portioned single-serve sachets for $15. On Amazon, a 10.5-ounce jar of Nescafe Clasico Dark Roast Instant Coffee costs $8.69.