dissolve in cold water, ONLY THEN add hot water. The rationale behind it is that aromatics evaporate too quickly when the instant powder is infused with too/boiling hot water.
I do. Almost always. And there are three main reasons for it.
(A) Hassle free prep. Hot water and stirrer, bam!
(B) No waste/by-products (e.g. filter, brewed coffee granules residue, blah blah) - so much less carbon footprint.
(C) A cup of instant coffee has slightly less caffeine content than the same cup of freshly brewed coffee. Good for me, because I have been a caffeine-addict, and trying to cut down now.
So I always try to go for Freeze-dried instant coffee ( especially Colombian, like Juan Valdez ), and not the Spray-dried shit.
Edit : I thank max and the OP for enlightening me about the instant coffee manufacture process. It surely appear that Instant coffee has a lot more environmental impact than simple ground coffee because of more processes involved. I have always consumed instant coffee, but were totally ignorant on this part. Dumb of me.
Thanks to the people directing me to the right way, and I will strike out my second point above.
There is waste and byproduct, just not in your kitchen. Look into the manufacturing process. There are still beans that are roasted, ground, brewed and discarded.
Yep, that's exactly why I said much less carbon footprint, not zero.
It's the same way Electric vehicles are "greener" than their gasolene counterparts even though both get their "energy" from fossil fuels. That's because the EV manufacturing plants have somewhat better mechanism to dissipate the waste products and pollute the air less than my gasolene car spewing smoke out on the street.
Instant coffee has >2 times higher impacts and costs than ground coffee.
Based on the functional unit of 1 tonne of coffee produced, instant coffee has higher impacts and costs than ground coffee for both system boundaries because it requires double the amount of green coffee beans and 7–11 times more energy.
(B) No waste/by-products (e.g. filter, brewed coffee granules residue, blah blah) - so much less carbon footprint.
Not sure how you come to this conclusion. The waste is the same (if not more), just ends up somewhere else. Also, you're adding a whole extra process (freeze drying) requiring extra energy, and water needs to be boiled twice (during brewing and at home).