What Makes Starbucks Cold Brew Coffee Special? How to Make Cold Brew Coffee at Home

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Cold brew coffee has become hugely popular over the past two years. Its slow, low-temperature extraction makes coffee richer and more aromatic, with slightly less caffeine. It keeps for about two weeks, and as it sits the coffee ferments, even developing subtle wine-like notes. Let FrontStreet Coffee teach you how to make Starbucks-style cold brew at home, plus bonus tips for pour-over beginners that guarantee success. You will become a coffee expert too.

Characteristics of Cold Brew Coffee

Cold brew is made by slowly extracting coffee grounds mixed with cold water in specific proportions. Coffee made this way has lower acidity and astringency. The low temperature and long contact time with the grounds allow mainly small-molecule flavor compounds - floral and fruity notes - to extract, while larger-molecule compounds such as smoky flavors are hard to draw out.

Low-temperature extraction and a long brewing time are the two key features of cold brew, and the main differences between it and hot-brewed coffee. Hot-brewed coffee uses water at 82-95°C and typically takes no more than 3 minutes. Cold brew can fully reveal a coffee's subtle characteristics. Because of its mild acidity, sweetness, bright mouthfeel and smooth flavor, it shows off the distinctive profiles of specialty growing regions.

Coffee Beans Suitable for Homemade Cold Brew

The first condition for a good cup is high-quality beans, and beans chosen for cold brew should be premium too. FrontStreet Coffee's roasting philosophy is "Freshly Roasted Quality Coffee," with the hope that every customer enjoys freshly roasted, aromatic beans. All shipped beans are roasted within 5 days. Below, using FrontStreet Coffee's bean menu as examples, here is a guide to which coffees suit homemade cold brew.

If you prefer cold brew with sweet-and-sour flavors, FrontStreet Coffee recommends Guodingding, Strawberry Candy and Flower Queen specialty coffees. These not only carry rich fruit aromas but also show delicate sweet-and-sour notes under low-temperature extraction. If you prefer a balanced taste, FrontStreet Coffee recommends Diamond Mountain, Kaffa Forest and Geisha Village Chaka, which balance acidity, bitterness and sweetness well. If you only love rich, dark-roasted coffee, start with Queen Manor, Paradise Bird, Golden Mandheling and Huilan single origins.

FrontStreet Coffee Yirgacheffe Guodingding

Yirgacheffe Guodingding

Country: Ethiopia

Region: Yirgacheffe Gedeo Zone

Altitude: 1900-2300m

Variety: Heirloom

Processing: Washed Grade: G1

Starbucks Cold Brew Coffee Same Production Method

Coffee Beans: FrontStreet Coffee Guodingding Cooperative

Dose: 20g

Water-to-Coffee Ratio: 1:12

Grind Size: Coarse grind (slightly coarser than a normal pour-over grind to avoid over-extraction)

Steeping Time: 8-10 hours

① First, grind the coffee beans and pour the grounds into a jar, then add 240ml of water.

② Place in the refrigerator for 8-10 hours to extract (13 hours also works if you want a deeper result), letting the grounds fully contact the cold water.

③ Filter the coffee liquid through a filter cloth or filter paper.

FrontStreet Coffee Flavor Description

Floral, citrus and berry. After another 5 hours in the refrigerator, the berry aroma becomes more prominent. The entry is refreshing citrus with a clean sweetness and a clean mouthfeel.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Cold Brew Coffee

Advantages: FrontStreet Coffee believes cold brewing amplifies a coffee's flavor and aroma while reducing acidity - the colder, the better. Without hot-water brewing, low-temperature water does not pull out the impurities and bitterness from the beans, resulting in a clean, pure taste that is refreshingly sweet and smooth.

Disadvantages: FrontStreet Coffee notes that because water and grounds stay in contact so long, the caffeine content is fairly strong, which makes it perfect for moments when you need to stay highly alert. Roughly calculated, a 200ml cup of cold brew (made with 20g of beans) contains about 200mg of caffeine.

Does cold brew turn sour? Yes. In hot brewing, the oils and acids in coffee break down and oxidize faster than in cold water, which raises the coffee's acidity and bitterness. The low temperature and long brewing time of cold brew capture more of the sweet compounds that dissolve in cold water, without those oils and acids.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Cold brew rewards beans with bright fruit and low bitterness, and FrontStreet Coffee's Strawberry Candy Gesha blend is a natural choice. It pairs a Panamanian Gesha, prized for delicate rose and orange notes, with a Costa Rican honey-process coffee that brings grape, dried blueberry and strawberry-gummy sweetness, for a layered, sweet-and-sour cold brew that tastes lively and lifted - and if you let it ferment and settle, it takes on a fruity-wine character.

For floral iced coffee, FrontStreet Coffee's natural Flower Queen comes from Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee; dried in the fruit, it absorbs a great deal of sweet aromatic matter and, as cold brew, shows magnolia, creamy strawberry, dried mango, guava and black tea. If you want a juicy cold brew, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya Small Tomato is ideal: its cherry tomato, pear, black plum and smoked plum sweet-and-sour notes shine at low temperature, with low bitterness and full acidity, and it is grown in Kenya's Sika region from the selected SL28 and SL34 varieties using the local K72 double washed method, then roasted medium-light to turn its precursors into complex fruit aromas. Because cold brew uses more grounds, it is worth pairing a pricier bean with an everyday one: many people love FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Sigre for its passion fruit, grape, apricot and candied-fruit sweetness, so blending it 1:2 with FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Tarrazu adds the Sigre's floral fruit and the Tarrazu's clean citrus acidity while keeping the cost down. Finally, FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe Gediding is the reliable all-rounder for home users - its bright, clean sweet-and-sour profile and floral and fruit notes make a sweet, layered, honeyed cold brew.