A hotel room before sunrise. A cabin where no one thought of a grinder. A camping break, with a mug and hot water at hand. For coffee lovers, traveling often raises the same question: how to enjoy a good cup without carrying your entire kitchen?
The return of Freshs specialty instant coffee, offered by 94 Celcius in collaboration with Hasty Coffee, provides a particularly interesting answer. This Colombian coffee comes in a box of five individual sachets and features an unconventional profile: mint, watermelon, and citrus.
Behind this convenient format is also a story of producers, processing, and curiosity. A new way to think about travel coffee.
What is specialty instant coffee?
Instant coffee is coffee that has already been brewed and then dehydrated, which is reconstituted by adding water. It is therefore different from ground coffee, which must still be brewed using a coffee maker, filter, or another preparation method.
In the specialty approach, attention is paid to the starting coffee, its origin, its roasting, and how it is processed. The goal is to retain a recognizable aromatic identity in a soluble format.
This approach opens up an appealing possibility: choosing instant coffee for its character, just as you would choose a bag of beans. A fruity profile, an identified origin, or a producer's work can then count just as much as ease of preparation.
This is the spirit in which Freshs returns to 94 Celcius, a Quebec roaster based in Sainte-Julie, on Montreal's South Shore.
94 Celcius × Hasty Coffee: a collaboration centered on taste
For this version of Freshs, 94 Celcius is collaborating with Hasty Coffee, a company specializing in specialty instant coffee.
Hasty describes a method that begins with brewing the coffee, followed by freeze-drying. This process removes water from the frozen coffee through sublimation, with the goal of preserving its aromatic characteristics. The preparation and processing therefore take place upstream; when it comes time to drink your coffee, you simply need to reconstitute it.
The collaboration allows Freshs to be offered in a form that requires very little equipment. No grind to adjust, filter to rinse, or extraction time to monitor.
For people who like discovering coffees but do not always have the opportunity to prepare them as they do at home, the appeal is immediate.
Freshs: mint, watermelon, and citrus
The Freshs product sheet lists notes of mint, watermelon, and citrus. A fresh and fruity register, unusual for those who still systematically associate instant coffee with a cup with a heavily roasted taste.
These descriptors present the aromatic profile announced by the roaster; they do not constitute a list of ingredients.
The coffee comes from Colombia and brings together components from washed and co-fermented processes. This detail matters: it helps to understand the approach behind the product and gives expressive coffee lovers a reference point before choosing.
Those curious to discover this collaboration can find the Freshs specialty instant coffee by 94 Celcius, offered in a box of five individual servings.
A Colombian coffee linked to the new generation of producers
The story of Freshs begins long before its transformation into instant coffee.
According to 94 Celcius, the project was developed with Unblended Coffee and Sebastián Ramírez, and is part of the Young Producer Program. This initiative aims to create outlets for a new generation of Colombian producers and to promote their work.
This information provides context for the coffee: an origin, partners, and an agricultural project behind the finished product.
The instant format thus becomes another way to introduce this work. It allows you to take a coffee associated with a specialty approach to places where preparing beans would be less convenient.
Why choose specialty instant coffee for travel?
The main advantage is simple: reduce the equipment needed for preparation.
With beans, even a compact travel setup can include a grinder, a brewing device, filters, and a container to carry the coffee. An individual sachet considerably simplifies this organization.
At the hotel, it allows you to prepare your cup when you have hot water, before an excursion or a day of work.
Camping or at the cabin, it avoids having to manage an extraction and coffee grounds after each preparation. The empty packaging obviously still needs to be brought back.
On a business trip, a few servings can accompany early departures and breaks between two appointments.
At the office, it is also an option for coffee lovers who have a kettle but no personal coffee maker.
The five-sachet format allows you to plan your servings for a short getaway or keep a few coffees at hand for unexpected events.
How to prepare your instant coffee?
Preparation consists of pouring the contents of a sachet into a mug, adding water, and stirring to dissolve the coffee.
For dosing, it is best to follow the instructions on the packaging, then adjust the amount of water according to your preferences. Less water will give a more concentrated cup; more water will produce a lighter drink.
Pleasant-tasting water and a clean mug remain good starting points. The advantage of the format is precisely to be able to focus on these few elements, without having to master an extraction recipe.
The return of a coffee that takes up little space
With Freshs, 94 Celcius puts specialty instant coffee back on the agenda for travel departures, weekends outdoors, and busy days.
The collaboration with Hasty Coffee combines a simple preparation with a Colombian coffee with a distinctive profile, whose original partners are identified.
For lovers who like to explore both destinations and coffees, the offering fits in a small box: five servings, a mug, water, and a new opportunity to discover Freshs.