Usually, you turn to instant coffee out of desperation: It’s what you stomach when there’s no other option. The San Francisco start-up Sudden Coffee aims to change that, upending soluble coffee’s miserable reputation. Its creators brew it one cup at a time — using single-origin beans from top roasters like 49th Parallel and Ritual — then dehydrate it into a powder that retains even the most complex of flavors. Forget about the harsh and murky stuff you know from waiting rooms and college dorms; Sudden Coffee is so clean and elegant you get all the floral notes in a coffee such as the Biftu Gudina from Ethiopia. “I never make coffee at home because it’s so much work,” says co-founder Kalle Freese, the 2015 Finnish Barista Champion and a former coffee shop owner. But convenience is the mother of invention, and now all you need to make specialty-grade coffee is a cup, a spoon, some water and a few seconds to spare.