Best Single-Origin Coffee Beans for Cold Drip Brewing - Comparing Flavor Profiles of Ice Drip, Cold Brew, and Iced Pour-Over Coffee

When summer arrives, for coffee lovers, nothing beats enjoying a refreshing glass of iced coffee. If you reject high-calorie beverages, appreciate rich aftertaste, and love exploring new flavors, you should try the goddess-level drinks in the iced coffee world: "Ice Drip Coffee" and "Cold Brew Coffee." Compared to coffee extracted with hot water, ice drip and cold brew coffees possess uniquely wonderful flavors, with an overall refreshing taste and full coffee flavor. Enjoying a cup on a hot summer day is truly satisfying. In this article, let's follow FrontStreet Coffee to get acquainted with ice drip and cold brew coffee!

Ice Drip Coffee

Ice drip coffee, also known as Dutch coffee. It's said that because the Netherlands cultivated many robusta varieties with intense flavors during their rule of Indonesia, they invented a device that slowly drips cold water to brew coffee, enabling them to drink these quite bitter coffee beans in tropical regions.

Unlike hot water brewing, rich substances are difficult to extract under cold ice water conditions. Therefore, coffee extracted with ice water only captures the sweet and sour elements of the coffee. Meanwhile, due to the long extraction time, the caffeine content is higher than hot-brewed coffee, making ice drip coffee very popular among the Dutch - both refreshing and providing a quick energy boost.

Although ice drip coffee was invented by the Dutch, an interesting phenomenon is that you can hardly find this type of coffee in the Netherlands today. Instead, it has sparked an ice drip trend in Asia. In Japan, ice drip coffee has a history of several hundred years, which is why it's also called "Kyoto coffee" or "Japanese-style slow-drip." In South Korea, almost every café sells ice drip coffee, and many famous ice drip equipment brands come from Japan and South Korea, such as Tiamo, Hario, and others.

FrontStreet Coffee uses Tiamo's ice drip pot. To make ice drip coffee, generally use 60g of coffee grounds with sugar granule consistency (75% pass-through rate with China's No. 20 standard sieve) to extract 600g of coffee liquid (coffee-to-water ratio 1:10), made with a 1:1 ice-water mixture.

Place a circular filter paper at the bottom of the powder cup, wet it with water to adhere to the cup walls. Then pour 60g of ground coffee into the powder cup and gently shake to level the coffee surface. Next, place a piece of filter paper over the coffee powder layer. Because the filter paper's tension allows water to distribute evenly across the coffee powder surface for extraction, without filter paper, the continuous water drops would create a pit in the coffee bed over time.

After placing the appropriate filter paper, use ice water to moisten the entire powder layer. This step is similar to the blooming in pour-over coffee, improving extraction efficiency and consistency of the final product. Add a 1:1 ice-water mixture to the drip bottle, adjust the water dripping speed, and FrontStreet Coffee suggests a dripping speed of 6 drops per 10 seconds. After completion, pour into a clean, sealed, water-free, oil-free bottle and place in the refrigerator for oxidation, allowing the ice drip coffee's flavor molecules to be released before tasting.

Although delicious, making ice drip coffee is usually quite troublesome because you need to constantly monitor whether the ice water is still dripping. Although ice cubes appear very clean without any obvious impurities, because the ice drip coffee's water drops fall very slowly - at an average speed of 6 drops per 10 seconds - one extraction session typically takes 6-8 hours.

The valve is opened very small, so even the tiniest impurity can block the water outlet. Moreover, a complete set of ice drip equipment isn't inexpensive, so people invented cold brew coffee to enjoy low-temperature extracted coffee more conveniently at home.

Cold Brew Coffee

Compared to ice drip coffee which extracts substances through drip filtration, cold brew coffee is much more convenient. Simply prepare a clean, oil-free, sealed container, mix ground coffee with ice water/room temperature water at an appropriate ratio, place in the refrigerator for 8-12 hours, then filter the coffee with filtering equipment. Because it uses immersion extraction, the coffee exhibits much fuller taste and flavor.

FrontStreet Coffee typically uses a sealed cold brew pot to make iced coffee. To make cold brew coffee, generally use 60g of coffee grounds with sugar granule consistency (75% pass-through rate with China's No. 20 standard sieve), add 600g of room temperature/iced water (coffee-to-water ratio around 1:10), then stir to ensure the coffee grounds fully contact the water. Next, seal the container, place in the refrigerator for 8-12 hours, then filter out the coffee grounds to obtain a glass of iced coffee with full flavor and texture. At this point, you can add 1-2 ice cubes according to your taste, dilute slightly before drinking.

Coffee extracted at low temperatures has the advantage of not drawing out the impurities and bitterness from coffee beans, which is why many people prefer using the Cold Brew method. This drinking method not only tastes relatively fresh and slightly sweet - because acidity and bitterness are relatively reduced - but also has a smoother texture. The disadvantage is that due to the extended contact time between water and coffee grounds, it contains the strongest caffeine content among iced coffee varieties. If you're sensitive to caffeine, remember not to drink too much!

Coffee Bean Selection

As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned above, using low-temperature extraction methods cannot effectively extract the full-bodied substances, so FrontStreet Coffee recommends using coffee beans with prominent acidic and aromatic flavors for making cold brew/ice drip coffee. For example, light to medium roast coffee beans or specially processed coffee beans are suitable for making cold brew coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee's daily offerings include ice drip coffee, typically using FrontStreet Coffee's Honduras Sherry coffee beans (fermented wine aroma, vanilla cream, nutty flavors), FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopia Yirgacheffe GedinG coffee beans (citrus, honey, green tea flavors), FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopia Sidamo Guji Flower Queen coffee beans (complex berry juice, rose, black tea flavors), FrontStreet Coffee's Panama Butterfly Geisha coffee beans (white floral aroma, citrus, honey, green tea flavors), and FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Strawberry Candy coffee beans (strawberry hard candy, raisins, fermented aroma). These coffee beans are characterized by rich aromas and prominent sweet and sour notes, making them perfect for making refreshing iced coffee in summer.

Cold Brew Storage

After cold brew is prepared, should it be refrigerated again?

For cold brew served in our café, FrontStreet Coffee seals and refrigerates it for 3-4 hours after filtering before serving. We know that freshly made cold brew can be consumed immediately and tastes quite good. So why do we still refrigerate it further?

It's a habit many experienced coffee enthusiasts have developed: after ice drip extraction is complete, it should be placed in a clean container and refrigerated overnight for better flavor. Staying in the refrigerator overnight means sealed storage in a low-temperature environment, which we can simply understand as "aging," with two purposes: controlling fermentation and preventing spoilage.

Although home refrigerators appear clean on the surface, they actually contain many microorganisms difficult to detect with the naked eye, which can lead to food spoilage or deterioration if not handled carefully. Therefore, to ensure coffee isn't contaminated by external factors, the containers we use must have good sealing performance and be thoroughly cleaned. Low-temperature storage not only inhibits the reproduction rate of certain bacterial colonies but also allows substances within the coffee to undergo a slow, controlled fermentation process. This explains why the longer ice drip is stored, the more intense the fermented wine aroma becomes, though they don't actually contain alcohol, so you can drink with peace of mind.

Compared to room temperature extracted ice drip, cold brew - which allows water to soak coffee grounds overnight - already possesses relatively complete flavors. At this point, refrigerating the coffee liquid for several more hours primarily aims to allow further fermentation of dissolved substances, bringing a more transparent and mellower coffee taste.

Shelf Life of Cold Brew

How long can refrigerated cold brew be stored?

FrontStreet Coffee has noticed that many people seeking convenience will prepare a large pot of coffee at once and store it in the refrigerator, pouring it out whenever they want to drink. This leads to problems if not properly labeled - it's easy to forget exactly how many days the coffee has been in the refrigerator, potentially leading to spoilage issues.

First, the fermentation process of low-temperature extraction cannot be interrupted - refrigeration only slows down the coffee's fermentation speed. As time passes, the substances dissolved in water continuously change, eventually leading to spoilage. Additionally, each time we open the bottle cap, the coffee liquid comes into contact with air, which not only causes aroma dissipation but may also introduce bacteria into the container.

Generally, considering both flavor experience and health safety, whether it's ice drip or cold brew, for any extraction method performed in low-temperature environments, FrontStreet Coffee recommends consumption within 5 days (counting from the preparation date).

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style).

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat account: qjcoffeex

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473