It looks like exactly the same stuff.

So why you cannot just, you know, ground the coffee bean and coat it in instant coffee powder?

Is that anything different?

Great question.

Ground coffee beans and instant coffee might look similar, but they're quite different.

Ground coffee is just roasted beans that have been ground up.

You need to brew it to extract the flavors.

Instant coffee, on the other hand, has already been brewed and then dried, so it dissolves completely in water, giving you an instant brew.

If you try to dissolve ground coffee beans in water, you'd end up with a gritty mess because they're not made to dissolve like instant coffee.