Cold Brew Coffee Making Steps Process Brewing Tutorial Guide Cold Brew Coffee and Cold Drip Coffee Taste Differences Characteristics

Friends often ask FrontStreet Coffee how to tell cold brew coffee, ice drip coffee, and iced brewed coffee apart. So this time, FrontStreet Coffee has compiled everyone's questions to explain them one by one.

Understanding Cold Brew Coffee

In terms of scope, cold brew coffee is the general term for low-temperature coffee extraction, which includes ice drip coffee, cold brew coffee, and iced brewed coffee. However, cold brew is often equated with one specific style, so in the narrow sense, cold brew coffee usually refers to the immersion version of cold brew.

The biggest difference between cold brew coffee and ice drip coffee is that the former uses immersion extraction, while the latter uses drip extraction.

Cold brew coffee is usually made by directly adding coffee grounds to cold water in proportion, mixing well, sealing, and placing the mixture in the refrigerator for extraction. Generally, after 12 hours, the coffee grounds are filtered out and it can be consumed. Ice drip coffee, however, requires an ice drip stand, in which ice water is set to drip slowly to extract the coffee liquid.

Therefore, cold brew coffee generally presents flavors closer to the original characteristics of the coffee beans, with fuller and richer textural layers. Ice drip coffee presents a very clean, bright, and refreshing profile, with intense fermentation notes unique to the ice drip method, fully showcasing the distinctive flavors of this brewing technique.

Coffee Bean Recommendations for Cold Brew

Actually, any type of coffee bean is suitable for making cold brew coffee; it is just that beans from different regions, with different roast levels and processing methods, will exhibit different flavor profiles when made into cold brew.

If FrontStreet Coffee were to suggest, we would recommend coffee beans from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Panama, because beans from these countries are generally lightly roasted, displaying floral and fruity acid notes, making them very suitable for cold brew. For example, FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Washed Gudina, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya Asalia, and FrontStreet Coffee's Panama Maracaturra coffee beans.

Cold Brew Method Recommendations

There are many cold brew methods that can achieve good flavors, and FrontStreet Coffee will introduce one relatively simple method for everyone's reference.

The container can be a mineral water bottle or a glass bottle, as long as it has a sealed lid. The coffee grounds should be ground slightly finer than for pour-over, approximately the fineness at which 85% passes through a #20 sieve.

Using 40 grams of coffee grounds as a baseline, place the coffee grounds in a glass bottle, then add 500 ml of room-temperature drinking water to the bottle. The powder-to-water ratio is 1:12. Then use a stirring rod to mix the coffee grounds and water thoroughly, seal, and place in the refrigerator.

The cold brew time is recommended to be controlled between 12-24 hours. The longer the time, the stronger the coffee flavor will be, but it is not recommended to exceed 24 hours.

When steeped for 8 hours, the coffee's flavor will be bright and acidic with a refreshing feeling.

When steeped for 16 hours, the coffee's flavor will be more rounded and full, with abundant sweetness and acidity.

When steeped for 24 hours, the coffee's flavor and texture will be thicker, richer, and more balanced.

After refrigeration is complete, you can use filter paper to filter out the coffee grounds. FrontStreet Coffee recommends bottling the filtered, clean coffee liquid and refrigerating it for another 4 hours before drinking, which will make the cold brew coffee more aromatic.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Because cold brew highlights floral and fruity notes, lighter-roasted single origins shine, and FrontStreet Coffee has several that are ideal for the method described above. The FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Gudingding is a washed light roast with bright citrus, berry, and floral notes and a green-tea-like finish, and it makes a sweet, layered, honeyed cold brew. If you want a bolder fruit character, the FrontStreet Kenya Little Tomato, a K72 double-washed Kenyan coffee from Sika grown at 1550-1750 meters, shows cherry tomato, snow pear, black plum, and dark plum with full, juicy acidity that stays refreshing over ice. The FrontStreet Ethiopia Huakui, a natural light-to-medium roast, brings magnolia, creamy strawberry, dried mango, guava, and black tea to cold brew. For a sweeter, fruit-wine-like cold brew, the FrontStreet Strawberry Candy blend combines Panamanian Geisha with Costa Rican honey-process coffee for rose, orange, grape, dried blueberry, and strawberry-marshmallow notes.