What Coffee Bean Varieties Are Suitable for Cold Brew and How to Choose Them: Grind Size and Water Ratio for Cold Brew Coffee

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Cold Brew Coffee: The Perfect Summer Essential

Cold brew is a summer staple. If you're a true cold brew enthusiast, why not explore different approaches to it with us?

Cold Brew Coffee (COLD BREW)

The concept is similar to cold-steeped tea: grind the beans, add cold water, steep in a low-temperature environment for at least about 12 hours, then simply filter out the grounds before drinking.

This cold extraction amplifies coffee's flavors and aromas while taming acidity, leaving a cleaner, purer profile — and the colder you drink it, the better it tastes. It's wonderful over ice. In America it's especially popular to cut it with an equal amount of coconut water, which draws out an even purer coffee sweetness and aroma. Every shop's secret formula offers its own signature character.

Cold Brew Coffee (COLD BREW) — Immersion Method

Required Ingredients

◆ Beans: we use FrontStreet Coffee single-origin beans, specifically natural Sidamo. Cold brew ratio: coffee : water : ice = 1:5:5

◆ Coarsely ground coffee. Coarse grinding is the key to cold brew.

◆ A container. Plastic or glass both work, ideally with a lid; a leftover jam jar or a French press pot does the job (and photographs well).

◆ Ice water. Use filtered water or bottled mineral water.

◆ A filter. If you're not using a French press, you'll need filter paper or sanitized coarse cotton cloth.

Cold Brew Coffee Preparation Steps

1. Preparation

◆ Pour the grounds into the container.

◆ Slowly pour in the ice water while stirring gently so every ground is thoroughly wet.

◆ Cover with the lid; no lid, seal with coarse cotton cloth.

2. Steeping

Place in the refrigerator and steep for 12 hours. Don't rush it!

3. Filtering

◆ With a French press, press the plunger down gently to separate the grounds, then pour out the coffee.

◆ Without one, strain the grounds through coarse cotton cloth or filter paper.

◆ Filter twice for best clarity before discarding the grounds. (Don't waste the spent grounds — they make good fertilizer or refrigerator deodorizer. Never just throw coffee grounds away; their second lives are wonderful!)

4. Tasting

There you have it — with such simple steps, your homemade cold brew is ready!

Iced Pour-Over (Flash Brew) Method

Materials

15 g of FrontStreet Coffee Butterfly single-origin beans, 125 g hot water, 100 g ice

Your favorite pour-over device (Chemex, Hario V60, Beehouse Dripper, Kalita Wave, etc.)

A coffee container (mug, Chemex, glass jar, glass pitcher, etc.)

Filter paper

A scale

A coffee grinder

A pour-over kettle (Hario Buono, etc.)

A timer

Method

First rinse the filter paper with hot water and discard the rinse water.

Place 100 g of ice at the bottom of your coffee container.

Grind the coffee to medium-coarse, similar to beach sand. A better grinder produces more uniform grounds.

Put the coffee in the wet filter paper, start the timer, and begin pouring freshly boiled water. Use the same technique as hot pour-over: first pour just enough hot water to wet all the grounds for the bloom, then wait about 30 seconds. If the coffee is fresh enough, you'll see the bed bubble and release gas — that's carbon dioxide escaping.

After 30 seconds, continue pouring in three stages at a 1:8 ratio, so pour slowly. Ideally all the water is in within about 2 minutes. Add ice when drinking.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Ethiopia is one of the world's best-known specialty coffee origins — and as the birthplace of coffee it hosts countless native varieties, a treasure land that keeps coffee lovers faithfully coming back. Its coffees are natural companions to cold brewing: floral, fruity, and bright, exactly the qualities cold extraction amplifies.

The gateway is FrontStreet Coffee's washed Yirgacheffe, with clear jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity. Yirgacheffe itself is a small town in southern Ethiopia where spring-like weather, mist, and cool humidity let thousands of coffee trees thrive, weaving florals and fruit acids into a light, elegant, tea-like cup — like a refreshing, clean lemon tea. For a step up in character, FrontStreet Coffee's Worka (Guodingding) Cooperative lot comes from a 300-member cooperative that split from the Yirgacheffe Union's Worka station in 2012 as demand for traceability grew; depulping before drying gives it crystal-clear orange and lemon tones with elegant white florals, bright and delicate.

If you prefer a fuller, fruitier cold brew, choose a natural. FrontStreet Coffee's natural Huakui from the Hambella district of Guji, Sidamo dries whole cherries on raised beds for 21 days — turned constantly, with moldy or defective beans hand-sorted out every three to five days — and after medium-light roasting it offers light fermented wine notes, florals, citrus, and mango, with honeyed sweetness, a cocoa-spice undertone, thick body, and a long finish. The Red Cherry Project natural from Yirgacheffe, sorted through density, color, and hand-picking checks, shows peach, cocoa, honey, and lemon.

Two more FrontStreet selections round out the lineup: the Hamasho natural from Sidamo, built on JARC's compact-beaned 74158 variety, smells of perfume lemon, strawberry, and star fruit and tastes of strawberry, star fruit, and green grape sweetness with late-emerging florals; and the Kaffa Forest coffee, grown wild under shade at 1,400–2,100 meters, shows white florals, bright lemon acidity, sweet orange and bergamot, a faint melon-and-nut finish, and a green-tea mouthfeel. Grind any of them coarse, steep overnight, and Ethiopia's finest qualities land straight in your glass.