The Origin Story of Nitro Coffee_ What Class Does Nitro Coffee Belong To_ How to Drink Nitro Coffee

The Rise of Nitro Coffee

It feels as if the biting cold wind was only yesterday, yet this April we can already sense summer slowly approaching. When you think of summer, do only iced Americanos and iced lattes come to mind? How monotonous. You have to try a nitro coffee. Yes, we mean Starbucks' newly announced returning favorite, "Nitro Cold Brew." With its dense, smooth texture and its dancing little bubbles, it not only drives away the summer heat but adds a sense of happiness as well.

The Origins of Nitro Coffee

Think only Starbucks sells it? Guinness was actually the inspiration behind nitro coffee.

In 2016, when the global coffee chain giant Starbucks announced the addition of cold brew and introduced nitro coffee, nitro coffee first appeared at Seattle's super flagship store, "Coffee Roastery," then rapidly expanded to seven major American cities including San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, becoming the best-selling beverage in stores.

Although Starbucks pushed the nitro coffee trend to its peak, the concept did not originate with Starbucks. Food scientist Nate Armbrust of Stumptown Coffee Roasters in Portland, Oregon, once predicted that such a product would inevitably be born. He believed that a coffee beverage that could both preserve the full flavor of coffee and absorb the perfect texture of beer would become mainstream. He then conducted countless experiments to realize nitro coffee. Finally, inspired by Guinness (Guinness, from Ireland's Arthur Guinness Son & Co., uses nitrogen to make beer, forming tiny bubbles that create a dense foam layer on top and perfectly express the beer's aroma and texture), he adjusted time and pressure and proved the feasibility of his idea in 2013, causing quite a sensation.

Coffee infused with nitrogen will remind you of beer, with dense bubbles rising as if bringing the coffee in the cup to life. The texture has a richness similar to milk coffee, smooth and delicate yet without the taste of milk. In the long history of our acquaintance with coffee, countless variations have been created, yet the popularity of nitro coffee is inseparable from its perfect preservation of coffee flavor, its enhanced mouthfeel, and its perfect visual appeal.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Nitro coffee is built on a clean, flavorful coffee base, and cold brew is the usual starting point, so the bean you choose matters more than anything. FrontStreet's sun-dried Flower Queen is a natural choice: cold brew concentrates floral and fruity notes while softening woody and roasted flavors, so a light-medium roast like this one is ideal, offering magnolia, cream strawberry, dried mango, guava, and black tea. If you want a juicy, fruit-forward base, FrontStreet's Kenya Small Tomato comes from the Thika region of Kenya at 1550-1750 meters, grown from the SL28 and SL34 varieties at the AA TOP grade, and processed with Kenya's signature 72-hour double wash; at a medium-light roast it delivers a bright, full-bodied cherry tomato, snow pear, black plum, and smoked plum acidity that stays refreshing over ice.

For a sweeter, more layered cold brew, FrontStreet's Strawberry Candy Geisha blend pairs Panama Geisha with a Costa Rican honey-processed lot, one bringing delicate rose and orange notes and the other grape, dried blueberry, and strawberry-fudge sweetness, so the cold brew is bright and lively and, if left to settle and ferment a little, takes on a wine-like texture. If you want to stretch an expensive single origin without losing quality, a blend is a smart move: many drinkers love the passion fruit, grape, and apricot sweetness of FrontStreet's Colombia Xi Zhua, grown at 1650-1800 meters and processed as a double anaerobic natural, but for cost you can add FrontStreet's Costa Rica Tarrazu at a 1:2 ratio, keeping the floral-fruity aroma of the Xi Zhua and the clean citrus acidity of the Tarrazu while improving the value of every cup.