What's the Difference Between Iced Pour-Over, Cold Drip, and Cold Brew Coffee? How Long Can Cold Drip Coffee Last? How Long Does Cold Drip Coffee Take to Make?

It's only the beginning of March, but FrontStreet Coffee can already feel the scorching heat from bicycle seats. It's no wonder that refreshing and thirst-quenching "summer-relief tool" iced coffee has long become a best-selling product at our store. However, iced coffee comes in many varieties. Besides iced Americanos and iced lattes (iced espresso-based coffees), there are also iced pour-over coffee, iced drip coffee, and cold brew coffee.

Due to the wide variety of options, many beginners often fall into "choice paralysis" because they can't clearly distinguish between them. So today, FrontStreet Coffee will briefly introduce the respective advantages of these three and their differences.

Iced Pour-Over Coffee

For most people, iced pour-over coffee is already quite familiar. But if some friends are relatively unfamiliar with it, we can simply understand it as hot pour-over coffee cooled by adding ice cubes.

However, to avoid the dilution of coffee concentration by melting ice, we will adjust the grind to be finer before brewing and reduce the powder-to-water ratio used during brewing to obtain a hot pour-over with higher concentration than usual. Then, combined with the cooling and dilution by ice cubes, it becomes a pot of iced pour-over coffee with appropriate concentration.

Take FrontStreet Coffee as an example. FrontStreet Coffee typically uses 15g of coffee grounds for pour-over coffee. For hot brewing, the grind is 80% through a #20 sieve (for light roast coffee), with a powder-to-water ratio of 1:15; for iced brewing, the grind is 85% through a #20 sieve (for light roast coffee), with a powder-to-water-to-ice ratio of 1:10:6. Other parameters remain consistent: 92°C water temperature, 2-minute extraction time, and three-stage brewing. After iced brewing is complete, it will be shaken or stirred multiple times to ensure full contact between ice cubes and coffee liquid, achieving rapid cooling and concentration dilution.

Compared to the other two types of iced coffee, the characteristic of iced pour-over coffee is that it offers more variety. Because hot water is first used to dissolve the flavor substances in the coffee and then cooled by ice cubes, it doesn't require 1-2 days of advance preparation and can be made to order. For this reason, customers can choose beans that suit their taste for iced pour-over preparation.

In terms of flavor, since the concentration of iced pour-over coffee is not as high as that of iced drip and cold brew, it tastes very refreshing with prominent flavors and no burden.

Iced Drip Coffee

Iced drip coffee, like pour-over coffee, is a drip extraction method. However, the difference is that iced drip uses ice water instead of hot water. Due to the very low extraction efficiency of ice water and the more challenging extraction when combined with the drip method, making iced drip coffee often requires several hours to complete.

Moreover, iced drip coffee cannot be consumed immediately after the drip process is complete because it needs to be refrigerated for several hours for fermentation! Through fermentation, iced drip can develop richer aromas and excellent texture, which is why iced drip coffee needs to be prepared 1-2 days in advance.

Still taking FrontStreet Coffee as an example, the production parameters for FrontStreet Coffee's iced drip are: 60g of coffee grounds, a 1:10 powder-to-liquid ratio, and the same grind level as pour-over coffee at 80% through a #20 sieve (for light roast coffee). The ratio of ice water mixture used is 1:1, with the throttle valve controlling the flow rate at 1 drop every 2 seconds, and the entire extraction time takes approximately 6-8 hours. After extraction is complete, it is placed in a sealed bottle and refrigerated for 12 hours before it can be served.

Compared to the other two, iced drip coffee will have more outstanding coffee flavors, richer fermented aromas, higher sweetness, while also having a cleaner texture and rich layers. However, the disadvantage is that for some people, the wine-like aroma of iced drip coffee can be too strong, causing discomfort, while options are relatively limited.

Cold Brew Coffee

Cold brew coffee, like iced drip coffee, is coffee extracted with cold water at low temperatures. However, the difference is that it uses an immersion method, which makes preparation much simpler! Because we only need to place coffee grounds in water for extended refrigerated immersion extraction, and then filter through filter paper to obtain clean coffee liquid for enjoyment (friends who have purchased professional cold brew bottles can ignore the filtering step, but this will add some difficulty to cleaning).

Still taking FrontStreet Coffee as an example, FrontStreet Coffee's cold brew parameters are: 50g of grounds, a 1:12 powder-to-water ratio, and an immersion time of 8-12 hours. The preparation method is: first place coffee grounds and room temperature water in a sealed bottle, stir evenly, seal, and refrigerate. The next day, or after waiting 8-12 hours, take it out for filtering. The filtered coffee is ready-to-enjoy cold brew~

Compared to the first two, cold brew coffee may not have as rich layers, but it will have a thicker texture. Because filtering cannot remove all fine particles and oils, cold brew coffee will have a richer mouthfeel due to their presence. Additionally, because extraction is more uniform, it will have more prominent sweetness than the first two.

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