How Much Does a Cup of Cold Drip Coffee Cost? Recommended Single-Origin Coffee Beans for Making Cold Drip and Cold Brew

As the weather gets warmer, the pre-made cold drip coffee in FrontStreet Coffee's refrigerator has become the most popular bestseller aside from iced Americanos. Without much introduction, customers walk in and say directly: "Boss, I'll have a glass of cold drip!"

Some customers hesitate when they don't know what to drink, so they ask the barista: "What's the difference between that cold drip and Americano?" FrontStreet Coffee answers: "One is made the day before, the other is made now." The customer becomes even more confused and finally quietly chooses the iced Americano because they think it's cheaper~

In most cases, if a coffee shop sells cold drip, it tends to be one of the most expensive items among all categories, sometimes even more expensive than Americanos and lattes by ten or twenty yuan. Why is this?

Types of Iced Coffee

All iced coffee on the market can be roughly divided into two categories: one is the hot extraction method where hot water is used for brewing and then cooled with ice, such as iced pour-over and iced Americano; the other is the cold brew type where cold/room temperature water directly contacts coffee grounds, allowing flavor compounds to slowly release, with cold drip being one of the most widely used methods.

Cold Brew vs. Cold Drip

We all know that cold brew coffee, which primarily uses the cold brewing method, utilizes long-term steeping and finally straining the grounds to extract. As long as you have a refrigerator and coffee grounds (beans), plus any clean container with sufficient capacity and filtering material, you can easily make a glass of iced coffee.

In contrast, making cold drip coffee has higher requirements as it requires a special drip device—the cold drip tower. There are many cool designs of these brewing devices on the market, with prices ranging from tens to thousands of yuan, but the main structure generally consists of three parts: an upper chamber with a valve to control the drip rate of ice water, a filter cup for holding coffee grounds, and a lower chamber to collect the coffee liquid.

With the assistance of this device, ice water drops one by one into the filter, reacting with the coffee grounds inside to extract soluble flavor compounds, then falls by gravity into the lower chamber until enough coffee liquid accumulates to end the extraction.

Since only cold ice water participates throughout the entire process, and the dripping speed is very slow (average 1-2 seconds/drop), it requires more time to allow more flavor compounds to fully release in order to achieve an appropriate concentration. Coffee doesn't easily release bitter and other off-flavors.

FrontStreet Coffee's Cold Drip Process

Taking FrontStreet Coffee's cold drip production as an example, they use the Tiamo HG2713 three-layer cold drip tower. FrontStreet Coffee is accustomed to using a 1:10 coffee-to-water ratio for production, meaning 60 grams of coffee grounds to extract 600ml of coffee liquid. The dripping frequency of ice water is about 7-8 drops every 10 seconds. Additionally, since the drip nozzle sometimes gets clogged by cold, they need to constantly monitor and adjust it, so the entire process usually takes 5-8 hours, depending on the amount of coffee used and dripping speed.

Throughout the entire dripping process, new cold water continuously passes through the coffee grounds layer, then filters to form new coffee liquid. Compared to the static cold brew type, cold drip is a dynamic brewing method that extracts and filters simultaneously. The ice water and coffee grounds are not in contact throughout the entire process, so in terms of mouthfeel, cold drip from the same coffee beans will be cleaner and clearer than cold brew.

The Fermentation Stage

The end of dripping doesn't mean the coffee is finished, as it needs to enter the next "low-temperature maturation" resting stage, allowing the coffee to develop a unique fermented taste—what we often call the "cold drip flavor."

The operation is simple: place it in a sealed, clean bottle and refrigerate for more than 8 hours. Until the refrigeration fermentation is complete, we can add appropriate ice cubes to the concentrated coffee according to our preferences. The purpose of leaving the coffee in the refrigerator overnight is to control fermentation and prevent spoilage.

From start to finish, making a pot of 600ml concentrated coffee liquid takes more than ten hours, which is why cold drip is generally considered the most time-consuming production method among all brewing methods. This is also why some coffee shops adopt an appointment system for selling cold drip. (Of course, at FrontStreet Coffee, you can still get cold drip coffee without an appointment; it's just that the flavor profile will be more random.)

Why Cold Drip Costs More

To highlight the unique mellow, wine-like quality of cold drip while avoiding the off-flavors from the tail end that come with prolonged dripping, many coffee shops specifically select high-quality single-origin beans rich in fruit aromas. Therefore, compared to the blends commonly used for espresso, the raw material cost for cold drip is relatively more expensive.

For example, when FrontStreet Coffee prepares cold drip, they like to prioritize selecting beans that feature floral notes, fruit aromas, and fermented wine flavors. With the support of slow dripping and low-temperature maturation, the resulting cold drip not only carries the bright, refined charm of fruity acidic coffee but also exudes a fruit wine-like fermented quality—mellow and fragrant yet refreshing.

Finally, and quite importantly, another reason why cold drip coffee is generally more expensive is that it uses more coffee grounds. For example, FrontStreet Coffee uses 60 grams of coffee grounds to make a 600ml pot of cold drip coffee, which can ultimately be sold as 3 cups (approximately 200ml + ice cubes each). However, according to pour-out serving standards, 60 grams of coffee beans can brew 4 cups of pour-over coffee (15 grams per cup).

Of course, price is not the only standard for measuring a cup of coffee. FrontStreet Coffee has also seen extremely cost-effective affordable cold drip that was equally fragrant and delicious. As long as the barista prepares it with care and extracts it properly, and the bean quality is solid, pricing will more often depend on the coffee shop's target positioning.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473