N Ways to Enjoy Cold Brew Coffee - Your Summer Will Never Be Monotonous Again!

Cold Brew Coffee - The Summer Essential

Cold brew is the summer standard. If you are a true cold brew fan too, join us in exploring the many ways to make it.

What Is Cold Brew Coffee?

Cold brew works much like cold tea. The process is simple: grind the coffee beans, add cold water, and steep them in a low-temperature environment for at least about 12 hours. Before drinking, just filter out the grounds.

This cold method amplifies the flavors and aromas of coffee while lowering acidity, producing a cleaner, purer cup. Its hallmark is that the colder you drink it, the better it tastes. Ice cubes make it wonderful, and in America it is popular to add an equal ratio of coconut water, which brings out a purer coffee sweetness and aroma. Every cafe has its own secret recipe and its own signature flavor.

Cold Brew Coffee Recipe

Required Ingredients

Beans: We use single-origin beans from FrontStreet Coffee - specifically FrontStreet Coffee's sun-dried Sidamo. Ratio: cold brew coffee beans : water : ice = 1:5:5

Coarsely ground coffee powder: A coarse grind is the key to making cold brew.

A container: Plastic or glass works well, preferably with a lid. If you want to take a few photos, leftover jam jars or a French press are excellent choices.

Cold water: Use filtered water or bottled mineral water.

Filter: If you are not using a French press, you will need coffee filter paper or sanitized coarse cotton cloth.

Brewing Steps

1. Preparation

Pour the coffee grounds into the container.

Slowly add cold water while gently stirring, so all the grounds are soaked.

Cover with a lid, or seal with coarse cotton cloth if you do not have one.

2. Steeping

Place it in the refrigerator and steep for 12 hours. Do not rush it.

3. Filtering

If you are using a French press, gently press down the plunger to filter the grounds, then pour out the coffee.

If not, filter the grounds through coarse cotton cloth or filter paper.

It is best to filter twice before discarding the grounds. (Do not waste the leftover grounds - they can be used as fertilizer or a refrigerator deodorizer, among other things.) Coffee grounds should never simply be thrown away; their uses are simply wonderful.

4. Tasting

And that is it! With such simple steps, your homemade cold brew is ready.

Cold Brew Pour-Over Method

Ingredients

15g of FrontStreet Coffee's single-origin "Flower Butterfly" beans, 125g hot water, 100g ice

Your favorite pour-over equipment (Chemex, Hario V60, Beehouse Dripper, Kalita Wave, and so on)

Coffee container (mug, Chemex, glass jar, glass bottle, etc.)

One filter paper

A scale

A coffee grinder

A pour-over kettle (Hario Buono, etc.)

A timer

Method

Wet and rinse the filter paper with hot water, then discard the water.

Place 100g of ice at the bottom of your prepared coffee container.

Grind the coffee to a medium-coarse consistency, similar to beach sand. Better grinders produce more uniformly sized grounds.

Place the freshly ground FrontStreet Coffee "Flower Butterfly" on the damp filter paper, start the timer, and begin pouring freshly boiled hot water over the grounds. Use the same approach as a hot pour-over: first pour a small amount of hot water over the dry grounds to bloom, just enough to wet them completely, then wait about 30 seconds. If the coffee is fresh enough, you will see the grounds bubble and release gas - that is carbon dioxide escaping.

After 30 seconds, continue pouring in three stages using a 1:8 ratio, slowly. Ideally you finish all the water within about 2 minutes. Add ice when drinking.

Coconut Cold Brew

Image: Huoli Laboratory

We also take 60g of FrontStreet Coffee beans, using FrontStreet Coffee's Colombian washed beans and FrontStreet Coffee's sun-dried Yemen Mocha in a 7:3 ratio. After 12 hours of steeping, the beans' natural sweetness is fully extracted. Adding a small amount of natural coconut juice introduces a coconut element to the coffee, creating a memory that belongs to this summer alone.

Ingredients List

Cold brew coffee 200ml

Coconut juice 30ml

Preparation Steps

1. Pour the cold brew coffee and coconut juice into a cup in the amounts above, stir gently, and serve.

Cherry Tonic Cold Brew

Image: Huoli Laboratory

Tonic water also shows up often in self-mixed drinks. What kind of chemistry will it create with cold brew? We decided to let these two "meet from a thousand miles away." In a glass full of ice, tonic water makes a wonderful fizzing sound of bursting bubbles. The cold brew flows down through the gaps in the ice, letting the aromas of coffees from different latitudes disperse in the cup - a surprising taste born from the perfect fusion of cold brew and tonic. Do not use too many cherries; three or two are enough, or they will steal the spotlight from the two leads.

Ingredients List

Cold brew coffee 30ml

Tonic water 90ml

Cherries 3

Ice cubes to taste

Preparation Steps

1. Fill the glass with ice, then pour in the tonic water and cold brew coffee in sequence.

2. Add the cherries and stir in one direction.

Storage

Prepared cold brew can be kept in the refrigerator for up to about 1 week.

Recommended Reading

Technical Sharing | A "High Success Rate" Method for Making Cold Drip Coffee

[Premium Beans] What Beans to Choose for Cold Drip, Cold Brew, and Cold Soak Coffee?

Debunking Myths! Does Cold Brew Coffee Have Higher Caffeine Content? The Truth Is...

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Fruit-forward Ethiopian naturals are exactly what cold brew rewards, because the long, cool steep pulls out their sweetness without harsh acidity. FrontStreet Coffee's sun-dried Yirgacheffe Red Cherry is a fine place to start: a fully natural-processed lot whose flavor profile of honey peach, cocoa, honey and lemon translates beautifully into a glass of cold brew. If you want something bolder and juicier for the coconut or cherry tonic recipes above, FrontStreet Coffee's sun-dried Huakui - from the Hambella area of Guji, Sidamo - brings soft fermented wine aroma, florals, citrus and mango with a honeyed sweetness and a full body. Steep either one at the 1:5:5 bean-to-water-to-ice ratio and you will taste why Ethiopian beans are the cold brew favorite.