Artisanal coffee, anyone?
Cold brew was still a relatively niche market until 2015, when Starbucks introduced the drink in a number of stores; it is now available at every one of its more than 13,000 locations in the United States, 800 of which also offer nitro. It's a coffee with both mass-market appeal and indie credibility. Today, you can find cold brew at a coffee shop where everything is meticulously crafted by hand, and at a Dunkin' Donuts.
The drink's range is expanding even more rapidly when you count canned, bottled and packaged coffees, called "ready to drink" within the industry. You can get that New Orleans-style iced coffee in a school-lunch-size milk carton, or that nitro cold brew in what looks like a beer can. Ready-to-drink, which has long been available in Whole Foods and other upscale markets, is now appearing everywhere. As of last month, you could find bottles of Slingshot Coffee, made by a small-batch company in Raleigh, N.C., at nearly 250 Target stores in the South.
What is cold brew? Essentially, it is a preparation. You steep coffee grounds in room-temperature water (which isn't "cold," strictly speaking) for six to 20 hours (depending on the recipe) to make a concentrate that can be diluted with water and served over ice. By giving up heat, you have to add time.
Cold brew is more than a slowed-down version of hot coffee; it's a noticeably different product. Hot water will bring out the acids in coffee, a characteristic that professional tasters call "brightness." Cold water doesn't but still gets the full range of mouthfeel and sweetness. The absence of acidity in cold brew is even more pronounced when compared with the iced coffee from the dark ages (of a few years ago), when it was almost always made with hot coffee that was chilled in the refrigerator. When hot coffee cools, even more acids develop, many of them unpleasantly harsh.
Cold brew coffee, and nitro.
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Most of the coffee consumed is prepared using hot water, but recently there has been a very large rise in the popularity and market share of cold brewed coffee. Cold brew is coffee that is prepared using room temperature water and steeping times that range from 8 to 24 hours (this is not the same as iced coffee, which is hot-brewed coffee that is served over ice), and this is supposed to alter the flavor, aroma, and compounds of the finished product. Major coffee chains such as Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts have jumped in with various products to capitulate on this market complete with claims of delivering a rich, smooth coffee with an inherently sweeter flavor reminiscent of dark chocolate and producing a drink that is not as acidic as that made using hot water. As with many food fads that first hit the scene, there are many strongly held claims made about the importance of things like the steeping times ("9.95 hours at 1 drip per every 0.8 seconds") or grind type based upon reasonably-sounding science, but very few claims that are supported by actual evidence.
In a recent paper in Nature Scientific Reports, Megan Fuller and Niny Rao at Thomas Jefferson University investigated the differences in the concentrations of caffeine and acid (3-chlorogenic acid) in four different coffee samples when brewed both by hot and cold methods. They took medium and dark roast coffees in both medium and coarse grinds.
Their results found:
- Acid and caffeine were found at higher concentrations in cold brew coffee made with medium roast over dark roast
- Grind size did not significantly impact the acid or caffeine level in cold brew
- Caffeine was substantially higher in cold brew over hot brew for coarse grind, but not statistically significantly higher for medium grind
- Acid concentration and pH levels were comparable between hot and cold brew methods
- Acid and caffeine concentrations reached equilibrium in only 6 or 7 hours instead of 10+ hours that some suggest is necessary
Previously: How Cold Brew Has Changed the Coffee Business
The chemistry of cold-brew coffee is so hot right now:
Cold-brew coffee is so hot right now, and not just with hipster consumers. Scientists at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have been taking a deeper look at the underlying chemistry to better understand how the cold-brew method alters coffee's chemical characteristics, with an eye toward pinpointing the best way to cold brew the perfect cup. They had originally planned to present their results last month at the American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia, but the COVID-19 pandemic shut that down. So instead, they presented the information in a virtual poster session.
[...] "It turned out that there is a lot of research on coffee but not much research on cold-brew coffee," said Rao. That's partly because the biggest coffee-brewing countries (Italy, Turkey, Brazil, Colombia, for example) are all devoted to hot-brew coffee, like espresso. The cold-brew trend is mostly centered in North America.
"There are a lot of studies on espresso," said Rao. "We thought it would be a good idea to put some information out there for consumers and enthusiasts like me who want to make their own cold-brew coffee."
In one paper, published in 2018, Rao and Fuller measured levels of acidity and antioxidants in batches of cold- and hot-brew coffee. But those experiments only used lightly roasted coffee beans. The degree of roasting (temperature) makes a significant difference when it comes to hot-brew coffee. Might the same be true for cold-brew coffee? To find out, the pair teamed up with one of their undergraduate students, Meghan Grim, to explore the extraction yields of light-, medium-, and dark-roast coffee beans during the cold-brew process.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday June 24 2017, @06:10PM (4 children)
We have one of those Keurig robots at work, and it's addictive and not so bad.
Starbucks has robots too, but not very good coffee.
Are these things better than regular SB?
I never drink ice coffee so I have no experience of these...
(Score: 2, Redundant) by LoRdTAW on Saturday June 24 2017, @06:20PM (2 children)
It's different from iced coffee. Iced coffee is (usually) hot brewed coffee poured over ice and served. Cold brew is a slow steeping process that gives you a different taste and a bit more caffeine. It's also served iced. So they are two different things. I've had DnD's cold brewed and it's pretty good. Smoother without the acidic "bite" hot brewed coffee has.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:46PM
I usually cold brew the coffee then add hot water when I'm ready to drink. It's less bitter and rather fast to prepare
Also I have the option of drinking it cold if I want to.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 24 2017, @09:01PM
At Starbucks the cold-brew is stronger and more expensive than the de-iced iced coffee. They are happy to substitute for free if they run out of iced coffee though.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday June 24 2017, @08:51PM
I have one of the most successful Starbucks, in Trump Tower. They changed the cups, folks. No more 'Merry Christmas' at Starbucks. No more. Because of political correctness. Maybe we should boycott Starbucks? I don't know. Seriously, I don't care. That's the end of that lease, but who cares? Let me tell you, Select By Trump is the best coffee you've ever seen in your life. It's custom blended. Available at selectbytrump.com and in the White House. #TrumpCoffee [twitter.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @06:55PM (3 children)
Coffee people are a lot like stoners. Perfectly tolerable folks until they want to talk to you about their drug, whereupon you find yourself overwhelmed by a desire to slap a motherfucker.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:19PM
Listen man, let me tell you about my hippy speedball.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @10:13PM
Dew shrooms.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday June 25 2017, @09:32AM
And I say that as someone who has 3 different mechanisms for making coffee at home, and who has 5 different coffees to chose from at any one time, depending on mood. As well as having about 20 different teas too, for similar reasons.
But if anything that strengthens and supports my annoyance - this inane fashion is predicated upon the presumption that one taste is somehow "better" than another. When I'm out and drinking drip filter coffee (which is not one of the three mechanisms I have at home), if I see a pot on the warmer that's 80% empty, I ask for 2 cups - I fucking love that hours-old tar from the bottom. And noone else does. Which is their right. For anyone to pronouce that a less acidic, temperature-minimised-taste is "better" than my prefered gutrot, is the height of arrogance, and quite simply wrong.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Saturday June 24 2017, @06:58PM (1 child)
The usual fluff, followed by simple directions:
http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/how-to-make-cold-brew-coffee/ [jamieoliver.com]
Just the facts ma'am:
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_cold_brew_coffee/print/ [simplyrecipes.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:18PM
Cheers for the links. Looks interesting and seems to require very little effort, a boon for the lazy (like me).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:03PM
is brewed at the table with condensed milk, preferably accompanied by Phở
(Score: 3, Informative) by Lagg on Saturday June 24 2017, @07:30PM (2 children)
My dad told me you can get rid of that if you strain it through the hat you wore when you ran cattle for a week.
No but seriously that's coffee in a nutshell. The idea that you can make something with such unnuanced raw flavor artisan is as funny as the artisanal pepperoni I saw in Denver. You want pussy unamerican shit.
Like Tea.
Also this is some hipster shit. They're selling the venue and brand. Similarly to the round ice cubes that they claim makes your whiskey go down liek 29x smoother. Doesn't surprise me. This was essentially the defining factor of the coffee shops in aforementioned city while I was there. Rather than actual good coffee. Of course Gregory I'm-too-cool-to-not-look-like-I'm-gonna-murder-these-people Zamfotis surely has no reason to play up such coffee fiddling.
Was going to paste some more absurd quotes from the article but there are too many. I swear sometimes I almost get insulted at the level of pre-supposition this shit has. It's coffee, drink it and enjoy it. God.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 24 2017, @09:04PM (1 child)
Sounds like you need your coffee, bud.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Lagg on Saturday June 24 2017, @10:26PM
Ranting at marketing is my coffee.
Why wake up, when cynicism is in yo cup
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Funny) by NotSanguine on Saturday June 24 2017, @09:06PM
As long as the coffee is thick enough to eat with a fork [youtube.com], but I use a spoon, to get every drop.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Insightful) by corey on Saturday June 24 2017, @10:57PM (3 children)
And I do my own espresso at home. Cold drip is a bandwagon which a lot of hipsters have keenly populated. Whenever I've drank this cold drip, it tastes like a coffee you made yesterday and left out in the bench all night. Its lifeless and generally crap. The shops love to charge you double for it too, compared to an espresso they had to make with twice the effort using a $25k machine.
I've never understood the hype. Then again I never understood why people wear no socks with their shoes and pants that are too tight and too short.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by caffeine on Saturday June 24 2017, @11:48PM
Agree 100%.
If you want a cold coffee, get them to drop a hot shot straight onto ice, then top up gently with iced water. You should get a nice marbling pattern on the surface, and the bitterness you expect from a coffee with the complexity the heat adds to the flavour.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 25 2017, @04:40AM
Are you sure it was prepared properly? Because I haven't noticed anything like that. Cold brew has a different flavor profile than what you'd get out of the same beans when brewed hot. One of the great things about it is that you don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on a machine that annoys the neighbors whenever you use it.
You can't expect to use the same beans and get the same result. We cold brew because we're looking for a different flavor profile and it's much better than watering it down with ice cubes just because you want it cold.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday June 25 2017, @11:14AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Saturday June 24 2017, @11:56PM (2 children)
Messing with temperature and time are the basics of brewing things - heck, there are _lots_ of teas that don't survive a breweing above 45c.
Also - if you dislike tannic acids (the harsh bitterness) your only choices are to cut down on brewtime or cut down on temperature (unless you want to mess with pressure (á la espresso)) but some flavours needs time to release so cutting down on temperature is the first trick you learn once you progress from the basics if you brew tea.
I'm actually surprised coffedrinkers don't tweak their coffee as much as we teadrinkers do.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:18PM (1 child)
Cut down on oxidation related off tastes using looseleaf tea. Aged and oxidized floor sweeping powder packed into a tea bag is pretty rancid, looseleaf is much less acidic.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Sunday June 25 2017, @02:30PM
I should have added "at the time of brewing". Personally I have a strong preference for mid-quality Oolongs (brewed at 75-80c) and when I do a Pu-Erh I often tend to go for the stuff that tastes best at 45-50c brewing.
Teabag and Earl Lipton are stuff I never touch (unless it is the russian blend, but that was composited to survive bejing-moscow by camel).
But yeah, picking a good tea (or coffee if that is the preferred poison) is paramount - brewing can only bring out the best of the tea but the limits are already set by the time you are pre-heating the teapot.