Cold Brew Coffee Tutorial: How to Make Incredibly Easy, Low-Cost Cold Brew Coffee at Home

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A few years ago, a novel and fashionable coffee-making method emerged in Europe and America - Cold Brew Coffee. Simple, direct, easy to start, visually appealing, and with short-term storage capability, its texture and flavor are also quite distinctive, instantly becoming popular worldwide. However, many people believe that cold brew coffee must be complex to make with numerous requirements. Little do they know that cold brew coffee is actually one of the easiest coffees to make at home!

What exactly is cold brew coffee?

Actually, cold brew coffee is like a good friend to iced coffee - they're the same coffee, but the production process and principles are completely different! Simply put, the biggest difference between the two is "temperature." Iced coffee is regular brewed coffee with ice cubes added to cool it down. Cold brew coffee, as the name suggests, is coffee extracted with "cold" water. These two not only have different production methods but even their textures are different!

Let's first introduce the characteristics of cold brew coffee:

Sweeter taste:

Flavor molecules in coffee have a dissolution order - aromatic small molecules are extracted first, followed by bitter and heavy large molecules. When brewing coffee with hot water, excessive bitter molecules are often dissolved due to improper temperature and time control, making the coffee taste unpleasant. Cold brew coffee uses cold water for long-term extraction, only dissolving small molecules like fruit acids and floral aromas. The taste is more fragrant, smooth, and presents the best original flavor of coffee. Being neither bitter nor astringent is the main reason why many people love cold brew coffee.

Long-lasting storage:

Any food becomes perishable after heating because the molecular structure is destroyed. Hot-brewed coffee has an extremely short freshness period - its taste starts to deteriorate after more than 45 minutes. Cold brew coffee hasn't undergone a heating process, so its freshness period is very long. After extraction, it can stay fresh in the refrigerator for up to two weeks, and the fermentation process will create different layers of mellow flavor changes in the coffee. It's generally recommended to refrigerate the extracted cold brew coffee for 1-3 days before drinking for better flavor.

Gentle on the stomach:

Many people with sensitive stomachs avoid coffee due to the stomach pain caused by regular coffee. Cold brew coffee contains fewer irritating molecules found in hot-extracted coffee, making it gentle, smooth, and non-harmful to the stomach - a relatively healthy choice.

Contains more caffeine:

Although caffeine is more easily extracted at high temperatures, cold brew coffee uses a much longer contact time between coffee grounds and water, with a larger ratio, and the soaking extraction is more uniform. Therefore, cold brew coffee definitely has sufficient caffeine content.

Next, I'll teach you how to make delicious cold brew coffee in an incredibly simple way!

With just 3 steps, simple tools, and very affordable ingredients, you can make your own summer cold brew coffee!

Step 1: Prepare two drip coffee bags

Grind size is really troublesome - fresh grinding requires preparing a grinder first, which is too costly. At this point, just two fresh drip coffee bags can easily meet the requirements for making cold brew coffee! Simple and affordable!

Why two drip coffee bags? Because cold brew coffee extraction is relatively slow, and it extracts less substance than hot water extraction, so the ratio of grounds to water needs to be larger, usually around 1:10. This means one drip bag (10g of grounds) with about 100g of water, and considering the grounds absorb water, you might only get about 80g of cold brew coffee. After waiting for such a long time, of course, you'd want to make more at once!

Step 2: Soak and refrigerate

Prepare a container - any material will work: plastic, glass, ceramic, etc. Whether it has a lid isn't important, but make sure it's deep enough to hold the coffee and water. First, open the drip bag and pour the coffee grounds into the container (don't throw away the filter bag! It will be useful!), then add cold water, preferably ice water below 5℃. The reason was mentioned above - low-temperature extraction is the specialty of cold brew coffee. Extracting with 4℃ water versus 24℃ water will give you different tastes!

Stir gently and ensure all your coffee grounds are moist and soaked. Then place in the refrigerator to soak for 12 hours. The soaking time is very important. Insufficient time will result in under-extraction and weak flavor, while too long... you'll wait very hard! Ha~

Step 3: Filter

After a full 12 hours of waiting, the coffee soaking extraction is finally complete!

At this point, you need to prepare a cup to hold the cold brew coffee. You didn't throw away the filter bag from earlier, did you? Pour the extracted cold brew coffee into the filter bag to separate the grounds. Wait until completely filtered, and you'll have your own cold brew coffee!

And just like that, with this super simple method, you can have delicious cold brew coffee. Moreover, it can be refrigerated for up to two weeks. You can add ice to adjust the concentration, or add milk or other flavorings you want!

Slow work yields fine results. Cold brew coffee is like the essence extracted by time - every drop is so precious. Whether for cooling off or trying something new, if you love coffee, you absolutely cannot miss the wonderful taste of cold brew coffee!

[29.9 Drip Bag Activity Preview]

Themed Drip Bag Series - Five Single-Origin Varieties

Five single-origin varieties covering three major regions: Africa, America, and Asia

Classic Arabica varieties: Ethiopian heirloom, Typica, Bourbon

Exquisite natural or washed processing

Covering light, medium, and dark roast levels

There's always one that's perfect for you!

One box of ten bags, only 29.9 with free shipping

(Activity time: June 27-28)

Drip bag Taobao link:

[FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) Seasonal Drip-style Coffee Bags Hand-drip Filter Bag Baked Fresh Ground Sugar-free Original Pure Black Coffee Powder] http://m.tb.cn/h.3YQcTwc?sm=afcccc Click the link, then choose browser to open; or copy this description €BluU0B4mndx€ and go to Taobao

Drip bag + pour-over kettle Taobao link:

[Pour-over Set] http://m.tb.cn/h.3YgF9aL?sm=c07072 Click the link, then choose browser to open; or copy this description €CR080B4ODm5€ and open in Taobao

Tear, hang, pour, drink

As long as you have hot water, you can enjoy black coffee

Very convenient

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473