What Coffee Beans Make the Best Cold Brew? A Guide to Grind Size, Steeping Time and Parameters

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The Awakening of Insects has passed and temperatures are climbing, and people in the Lingnan region are already hunting for ways to beat the heat. In chats with several friends who visited the shop, FrontStreet Coffee found that cold brew is the most popular iced coffee they make. The two common iced coffee methods are cold drip and cold brew. Cold drip requires dedicated equipment and regular adjustment of the drip rate, which makes it the pricier option.

Cold brew, by contrast, simply steeps coffee grounds in cold water for an extended period. The vessel can be as humble as a plastic water bottle or as specialized as a dedicated cold brew maker. It requires far less investment and is simpler to run — you just need to control the grind, the water amount, and the steeping time. As for which beans suit cold brew, FrontStreet Coffee believes any single origin sold as "pour-over suitable" will work. From a light-roast Geisha full of florals and fruit to a dark-roast Mandheling with deep bitterness, each creates its own distinctive character as cold brew.

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommendations

If you want a refreshing taste, choose a light-roast washed coffee, such as FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Yirgacheffe, FrontStreet Coffee's Boquete Geisha, or FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Butterfly. If you prefer a juice-like quality with sweet brightness, go for a light-roast natural, such as FrontStreet Coffee's Flower Queen, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya Small Tomato, or FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Duncan Estate.

If you want a cold brew that really impresses, try FrontStreet Coffee's Honduras Sherry, FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Mozart, or FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Rose Valley and Flower Moon Night. And if you dislike any acidity at all and prefer a balanced, classic "coffee flavor," pick FrontStreet Coffee's Papua Bird of Paradise, FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Tarrazú, or FrontStreet Coffee's Hacienda La Esmeralda Diamond Mountain.

Bean Freshness for Cold Brew

FrontStreet Coffee has also observed how some friends handle cold brew. Typically they buy a bag of beans, use them for pour-over while fresh, and only switch to cold brew once the beans are about a month old. There's real merit to this: when beans are too fresh, they still hold too much carbon dioxide, which actually hinders cold-water extraction of flavor compounds. After resting for about 20 days, once most of the gas has escaped, cold brew extraction yields much richer flavors.

That said, FrontStreet Coffee doesn't recommend letting beans sit too long — as the gas leaves, the flavors leave with it, and the cold brew turns flat. Generally, keeping beans within 45 days of roast is ideal. (There are exceptions: FrontStreet Coffee once cold-brewed a 90+ scoring Geisha three months post-roast, and it still tasted excellent.)

FrontStreet Coffee's Cold Brew Method

Many cold brew recipes produce excellent results; here is one from FrontStreet Coffee for reference.

Use a plastic water bottle or a glass bottle — anything with a sealing lid works. Grind the coffee slightly finer than for pour-over, roughly 85% passing through a #20 sieve. Using 50 grams of grounds as the standard, put them in a glass bottle, then add 400 milliliters of room-temperature water and 200 grams of hard ice cubes (if you have no ice, substitute more cold water). That gives a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:12. Stir the grounds and water evenly, seal the bottle, and place it in the refrigerator.

Steep for 12 to 24 hours — the longer it steeps, the stronger the coffee, but FrontStreet Coffee doesn't recommend going past 24 hours. Once refrigeration is complete, strain out the grounds with filter paper. FrontStreet Coffee suggests bottling the strained, clean coffee and refrigerating it for another 4 hours before drinking — it makes the cold brew noticeably more aromatic.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe Everyday Coffee: If you're new to Ethiopian coffee, start with the most classic choice — FrontStreet's Washed Yirgacheffe. It's known for white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and a tea-like finish, and its friendly price has made it the first specialty bean for countless beginners. Yirgacheffe (Yirga cheffe) is a small town in Ethiopia's Gedeo zone within the greater Sidama area, at roughly 1,700–2,100 meters, with coffee planted above 1,800 meters — among the highest coffee-growing regions on Earth. The area was a wetland in ancient times, and the name Yirgacheffe has become shorthand for Ethiopia's most recognizable specialty profile: white florals and lemon-citrus acidity. The name grew so famous that in 2010 the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange separated it from Sidama as its own designation — which is why Yirgacheffe coffee is a household name today.

FrontStreet Guodingding Cooperative Coffee: Many people don't realize that the Yirgacheffe area breaks down into many small sub-regions — even individual villages — several of which host highly experienced cooperatives with mature processing craft, taking the flavor profile yet another level up. The most representative is FrontStreet Washed Guodingding Cooperative, from Guodingding village. The cooperative sits in the Worka region at Yirgacheffe's southeastern end, originally part of the Worka cooperative under the Yirgacheffe Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (YCFCU). As demand for traceability grew, single-village lots like this were "discovered" one by one by coffee hunters worldwide. The cooperative follows the most traditional washed processing — hailed as Yirgacheffe's last unspoiled washed gem. FrontStreet's Guodingding coffee has none of the traditional bitter edge: it comes with fresh, bright citrus and lemon acidity plus jasmine fragrance that makes many coffee drinkers fall in love at first sip.

FrontStreet Natural Red Cherry Coffee: From the same Yirgacheffe region, FrontStreet's Red Cherry uses full-red-cherry natural processing — only fully ripe, defect-free cherries are picked, then given a first round of sorting at the station before being laid out on raised drying beds. For the first few days, workers rake the cherries every 2–3 hours to prevent uneven heating and over-fermentation. After three to five weeks of sun-drying, workers mechanically strip the outer pulp depending on weather and temperature, and the beans are moved to warehouse storage. Because the cherries dry with their fruit intact, the cup carries classic Yirgacheffe character plus the tropical fruit aromas of a natural: citrus-like acidity, berry juiciness, honeyed sweetness, and a cream-smooth texture.

Yirgacheffe Brewing Recommendations: Dripper: V60. Water temperature: 90–91°C. Dose: 15g. Ratio: 1:15. Grind size: EK43s at setting 10, or fine-granulated-sugar texture (80% pass through a #20 sieve). FrontStreet's pour structure: first pour 30g of water and bloom for 30 seconds; then pour 95g more (scale showing about 125g), completing the pour at around 1 minute; when the water level drops to two-thirds of the coffee bed, pour the remaining 100g (scale showing about 225g), finishing at about 1:35. Dripping completes at 2:00–2:10; remove the dripper and the extraction is done.