How to Make Delicious Cold Drip Coffee - What Coffee Beans to Use - Flavor Characteristics of Cold Drip Coffee Beans

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What Makes a Good Cold Drip Coffee?

There are no detailed standards for what makes a good cold drip coffee—everyone has their own brewing methods and standards. What details should you pay attention to when making cold drip coffee? This includes cold drip coffee bean selection, grind size, water-to-coffee ratio, water flow rate, and more. Today's article will cover 5 key details.

1. Cold Drip Coffee Beans

Coffee beans used for making cold drip coffee typically have their own specific blend formula to make it easier to extract warm, rich flavors. However, many friends, including us at FrontStreet Coffee, prefer to use high-quality specialty coffee beans to extract cold drip coffee, which allows us to obtain more unique flavors and personally preferred taste profiles.

However, since cold drip coffee uses a longer cold water permeation extraction process, I personally recommend choosing coffee beans with stronger flavors for cold drip, such as Kenya or Yirgacheffe—beans with distinctive personalities. This way, the extracted coffee will have a strong character.

Blends we frequently use:

• Sun-dried Sidamo [Zhu Mang] 60% + [Kenya] 40%

• [Yemen Mocha Sun-dried] 30% + [Uganda Sun-dried] 30%

• FrontStreet Coffee [Flower Butterfly] 50g + Panama [Casa Divina Estate] 30g

2. The Importance of Leveling Coffee Grounds

You must press the coffee grounds for cold drip coffee, but many people don't understand why cold drip coffee also requires tamping.

Here, it's important to note that tamping for cold drip coffee isn't about compressing firmly. Instead, first gently tap the grounds to ensure even distribution of coffee grounds in the filter cylinder, then use a flat tamper to gently level the surface. Remember to press gently when leveling, rather than applying firm pressure like when extracting espresso.

If the grounds are compressed too firmly, since cold drip coffee doesn't have pressure from a machine to aid extraction, it can easily cause water pooling in the grounds layer, preventing coffee liquid from filtering through. Additionally, cold drip filter paper or filters are typically at the bottom, unlike coffee filter cups which have ventilation grooves. Therefore, when coffee grounds are soaked in water, the degassing effect is also affected, which can cause uneven extraction throughout the coffee puck.

3. Pre-wetting

Using ice water for "pre-soaking" is actually similar to the blooming process in pour-over coffee. It can improve extraction efficiency and consistency in the final product. In the cold extraction environment of cold drip coffee with its filtering method, direct dripping might cause uneven wetting of the grounds layer, resulting in some coffee grounds being over-extracted while others don't participate in the extraction at all.

4. Using Filter Cloth + Filter Paper

This increases contact between water droplets and coffee grounds, ensuring even extraction.

It provides sufficient pre-wetting and ventilation space for the coffee, resulting in more complete and clean extracted coffee flavors. We use filter cloth + filter paper. After leveling the coffee grounds, we recommend placing a piece of filter paper over the coffee grounds.

When water droplets fall and touch the coffee grounds, the surface of the coffee grounds will gradually form a small pit, and the water flow will follow this pit downward rather than spreading outward. This means the coffee grounds in the entire filter chamber won't be thoroughly soaked, causing insufficient extraction. Placing a layer of filter paper prevents this situation.

We have compared different water droplet shapes formed by various cold drip towers and studied how coffee grounds absorb water from different droplet shapes. We found that elongated water droplets have greater impact force, so coffee grounds are soaked downward. This indicates that surface coffee grounds are more prone to insufficient extraction.

In contrast, when round water droplets fall, the impact force is smaller, and the coffee grounds' wetting pattern spreads outward along the perimeter (as shown in the image). This means round water droplets make the entire cold drip coffee extraction more even. This also means that the drip opening shape of the cold drip tower is very important—openings that can produce round water droplets are our preferred choice.

5. Coffee-to-Water Ratio for Better Layering

Coffee beans : Water : Ice cubes ratio 1:5:5

We generally prefer a coffee-to-water ratio between 1:10 or 1:12. Personally, I feel that ratios in this range present flavors more appropriately—the coffee isn't too strong or too weak, but just right. If you're used to serving customers with ice cubes, you can make it slightly stronger so that after the ice melts, the coffee concentration remains at a pleasant drinking level. Of course, this can be adjusted according to personal taste.

Final Thoughts

The above are five important factors to consider when making cold drip coffee. For the best flavor development, let it rest for at least 12-24 hours. This allows the characteristic aromas of cold drip coffee to become more outstanding.

Cold Drip Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted single-origin cold drip coffee beans offer excellent guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, they provide exceptional value—a half-pound (227g) package costs only around 80-90 RMB. Calculating at 200ml per cup with a 1:10 coffee-to-water ratio, one package can make 11 cups of coffee, with each cup costing only 8-9 RMB. Compared to café prices that often reach dozens of RMB per cup, this offers incredible value.

About FrontStreet Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee: A Guangzhou-based roastery with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find both famous and lesser-known beans. They also provide online shop services: https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473