Three-into-one for Asia: popular throughout Asia the term '3-in-1' is increasingly scarce as you move in the European coffee market. This idea couples soluble coffee with various additivites to emulate specialty drinks akin to those reserved for the higher and mightier R&G Arabica coffees that are becoming quite the indigenous product.

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Everyone is familiar with the old adage "two into one won't go," but soluble coffee that is pre-mixed and pre-packaged with refined sugar and nondairy creamer shows that "three-into-one" certainly does work and rapidly too, especially in Asia.

Three in one (3-in-l) is the no-nonsense name given to a fast-moving range of blended instant coffee products sweeping Asia, although the idea is not entirely new. Three in one first appeared in the 80s, but started to become popular in the 90s and finally took off in Asia over the last 10 years.

Soluble coffee blended with sugar, creamer, formulators and flavorings to emulate specialty coffee drinks like cappuccino, latte and mocha is already well-embedded in mature European markets such as in the U.K. and Germany, and of increasing interest in new ones like Russia.

The only difference is that of "3-in-1" the name widely adopted and used throughout Asia becomes increasingly scarce as you move in the European coffee market from east to west. Indeed there is nothing to be found in west European "coffee talk" that is so clinically concise and '"matter of fact." Instant coffee blended with cream and sweeteners complements, and spruced up with formulation and taste components, retails under names like "skinny instant latte" and "instant French vanilla." Such examples of these specialty instant coffee mixes are lavishly referred to by Kraft in their Jacobs range as indulgent mix products.

Indeed continental coffee connoisseurs in particular when confronted with a functional product label saying "3-in-1" would instantly jump up and ask 'three of what.' Many Europeans clearly rave over these soluble pre-mixes as an instant answer to specialty coffee drinking, if consumers on the CIAO Shopping Intelligence website are anything to go by. Some in the U.K. were recently waxing lyrical about Douwe Egberts Instant "Skinny Latte" and Instant "Skinny Mocha." No reference to ratios (3-in-l) here, but numbers galore including calories per cup and nutritional information right down to the 0.02 g of sodium per cup, clearly important for health conscious weight-watching consumers who salivate over such instantly "lean blends."

Be that as it may, increasingly exotic descriptions of 3-in-1 are now creeping into Asian coffee marketing jargon with label descriptions more akin to those reserved for the higher and mightier R&G Arabica coffees and single origin freeze dried soluble.

Indigenous 3-in-1

The change is not only superficial and product perception driven. Asian ingenuity is manipulating the basic 3-in-1-product line while turning it into something very indigenous. Across Southeast Asia in particular products like 3-in-1 instant "Asian white coffee" (not-to be confused with cafe au lait) and health promoting coffee instant mixes like "3-in-1" instant Gano derma and "Ginseng" coffee are available.

Such is the variety now appearing within the Asian "3-in-1" market that the terminology is expanding as "3-in-1" becomes insufficient to describe the extended range. There are simple and easily understood products such as "3-in-1" without sugar, and more logically termed "2-in-1," to the mind-boggling mixtures like '3-in-1' instant coffee-tea (soluble coffee and tea, creamer and sugar) and strictly speaking a 4-in-1 twin beverage mix.

Receptive Asian Market

Market conditions allowing 3-in-1 instant coffee drinks to take off across Asia so fast and furiously are worthy of investigation. While the boom is common to a whole clutch of countries across East and Southeast Asia, the biggest potential coffee market and traditional tea drinking nation (PRC) is perhaps the most intriguing.

Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is a dedicated tea drinking nation and the historic and cultural home of this leaf beverage, so at first sight might appear for coffee to be an extremely "hard nut to crack." But once established the rewards for coffee are great, because if Chinas entire population drank just one cup of coffee a day, a goal first mooted in 2003, it would mean an incredible 1.3 billion cups of coffee consumed every 24 hours.

Growth began in a big way some 10 years ago with total coffee sales almost doubling between 1998 and 2003 to exceed 6.5 thousand tons. Factors underpinning this early fast growth and consolidation of coffee in China are many, varied and complicated and closely related to continued uptake and success of instant coffee in 3-in-1 mixes. Perception, cost and convenience are the very foundations of how and how fast coffee drinking continues to develop in China.

Until recently, native Mainland Chinese perceived coffee as a beverage to be an entirely Western concept and lifestyle. Indeed given the complexities of modern coffee manufacturing, preparation and consumption, with all its types and terminology, it must have seemed completely alien. If you want to get more than 1 billion Chinese to "wake up and smell the coffee" the last thing you need do is to throw them into the deep end. So logically and sensibly coffee marketers initially introduced instant coffee, the easy way for mainstream Chinese consumers to mix, make, understand and appreciate the novel coffee taste, aroma and flavor.

Helping the market along in these early days was an already established coffee consumer group comprising young "returnee" students and professionals coming home after studying and working in western countries, and wishing to continue their adopted western lifestyle including regular consumption of coffee.

Research conducted five years ago revealed many had lived abroad for a decade or more with virtually all re-settling in the affluent and adventurous city-dwelling segments of Chinese society. Now back home they adopted and maintained hectic western-type lifestyles in which coffee drinking took place when and where time allowed, thus requiring the instant availability only the soluble product could provide.

More detailed dissection of the figures also showed foreign ex-pats made up a large chunk of coffee drinkers in China. Indeed official statistics from the city of Shanghai in 2003 showed a surprisingly large number (230,000) of Taiwanese Chinese were residing in the metropolis for significant periods (three months at least). Other figures indicate that around one third of customers who visit chain cafe outlets such as Starbucks were westerners. Business people from westernized Asian countries like Hong Kong and Taiwan were clearly attracted by Chinas high level of direct foreign investment and rapid growth.

In relation to the overall population of China these numbers were miniscule, but provided a base and a beginning by acting as trendsetters. They could introduce their PRC business partners (secondary trend setters) to the joys of coffee drinking, initially as a social experience in chain cafe outlets and later as regular home consumption.

Price was another factor. In spite of increasing amounts of money to spend, middle class urban Chinese are faced with a novel hot beverage (coffee) significantly more expensive than the traditional national drink (tea). Early growth in coffee consumption was underpinned by rapid increases in domestic production of green coffee, albeit from a low base. A roughly four-fold rise in domestic production from just over 3.5 thousand tons in 1997 to 13,000 tons by 2001 coupled with low price of coffee in the international marketplace clearly kept retail prices low. This in turn stimulated investment in coffee and raised its profile in the retail market, thereby helping to encourage and consolidate consumption especially in big city centers such as in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

What's more the spray dried instant product of Robusta origin used 3-in-1 is at the cheapest end of the market, and by the same token fails to offer much of a margin for manufacturers, packers and traders. More canny sections of the soluble coffee industry that know their markets appreciate that alternative uses and sales are required for soluble coffee, especially at the cheaper mass-consumption end of the market. And when the reward is over 1 billion cups of instant coffee day the margin does not have to be great. A 20g sachet of "3-in-1" instant containing just 3g of soluble spray dried coffee powder translates into an incredible 4,000 tonnes of soluble coffee consumed every day in China alone if every person consumed one cup per day.

The increasingly battered yet still buoyant Brazilian soluble coffee industry knows this more than most. It sees China as the ideal opportunity to bring unheard of numbers of new instant coffee drinkers into the fold, but only if they are given what they like and want. Brazilian soluble manufacturers believe the 3-in-1 instant mixes comprising exact proportions of creamer, sugar and instant coffee powder conveniently packaged to pop the contents of one sachet into one cup will eventually prove to be the lasting long term favorite with Chinese consumers. This will translate into a significant increased demand for soluble coffee at the budget end of the market, by requiring the solid Robusta flavor in spray dried instant coffee powder to push through the combined creamer/sugar tastes in these instant blends (Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, October 2006).

Instant Leads the Way