How to Make Cold Brew Coffee? How to Brew Cold Drip Coffee? How Long Can Cold Brew Coffee Last?

Cold brew coffee, simply put, is coffee extracted with cold water. Because it's incredibly simple to make and offers excellent flavor and mouthfeel, cold brew has long been a favorite home essential for most coffee enthusiasts. However, cold brew isn't without its drawbacks. For example, the lengthy preparation time is its biggest flaw preventing it from "ruling" the coffee world (exaggerating, of course)!

Traditional cold brew preparation typically takes a minimum of 8 hours. Not only does it require steeping time, but like cold drip coffee, cold brew also needs a certain "aging" period to develop its complete flavor profile. Unless you already have pre-made cold brew in your refrigerator, making it on the spot when you crave a cup means waiting almost a whole day (excluding delivery options). This leads many impatient friends to ask: "Is there a way to shorten the cold brew preparation time?"

Of course! The reason cold brew preparation is so time-consuming is that the low water temperature used for extraction results in weaker kinetic energy of water molecules, preventing them from quickly dissolving flavor compounds from coffee like hot water can. Therefore, by slightly increasing the initial water temperature during steeping, we can enhance extraction efficiency and thus shorten the extraction time. This is a method FrontStreet Coffee shared recently.

However, many friends aren't satisfied with this, as we frequently see posts on social media claiming: "Make highly sweet cold brew in just one minute." Due to the short preparation time and numerous bloggers sharing this method, many friends often ask FrontStreet Coffee in stores about the exact technique to achieve such sweet cold brew in such a short time. First, we need to understand that factors affecting extraction efficiency aren't limited to time and water temperature—grind size, water quantity, and extraction method also play crucial roles! The aforementioned "one-minute highly sweet cold brew" is achieved by changing the extraction method.

Pressure-Assisted Cold Brew Method

The specific approach is quite simple: using a hand press or an espresso machine capable of cold water extraction. This allows extraction similar to espresso preparation, utilizing the assistance of high pressure (up to 9 bar) to help dissolve flavor compounds from coffee quickly with cold water. FrontStreet Coffee conducted related experiments last year, adding ice water to a hand press coffee machine for extraction. The results were as FrontStreet Coffee expected—we obtained a cold brew coffee with decent appearance in just a few short minutes.

However, it only looked decent! In terms of taste, it was completely just water with coffee flavor. Except for meeting the cold brew coffee requirement in terms of water temperature, its mouthfeel, flavor, and concentration couldn't compare to cold brew obtained through long steeping. As for sweetness... it was indeed quite sweet, because minimal flavor was extracted, resulting in a light, sweet taste somewhat similar to apples. FrontStreet Coffee also tried using finer grinds than espresso extraction, more water (hot extraction uses 1:2 coffee-to-water ratio, cold brew uses 1:10), and longer times (hot extraction takes 30 seconds, cold brew 3 minutes) to increase extraction efficiency. Even so, the coffee machine still couldn't extract a flavorful cup of coffee with cold water. The root cause is simply that the water temperature is too low!

The Science Behind Cold Water Extraction

This isn't just because cold water lacks sufficient kinetic energy, but also because cold water cannot soften coffee fibers as quickly as hot water, and its concentration saturation point is lower. This explains why even with pressure assistance, coffee machines cannot quickly and substantially dissolve flavor compounds from coffee. This is also why cold brew requires time compensation to achieve relatively complete flavor development.

In summary, while this method can indeed produce a "cold brew coffee" in a short time, the resulting brew only has the appearance without the substance. In terms of both flavor and mouthfeel, it's completely different from the cold brew we know and love. If you want to shorten cold brew steeping time, why not try FrontStreet Coffee's initial suggestion to slightly increase the initial water temperature? This not only shortens extraction time but also allows for more complete dissolution of flavor compounds.

A Practical Alternative

Then again, since you're already using a coffee machine, why not just extract a shot of espresso and add ice to make iced coffee? Isn't that more convenient?

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473