Chill Out - A Primer On Cold Brew

Cold brewed coffee is on the minds of many coffee lovers these days. As a brew method, it's very much in fashion. Many non-coffee brewers are coming into contact with it because of the increasing number of bottled, ready to drink cold brews on the market, even here in South Africa. Perhaps most importantly, in the summer months, cold brew offers an alternative, warm-weather-friendly way to enjoy your coffee.

Given the surging interest in cold brew(ed) coffee, we thought we'd put together a primer for all those cold-brew-curious coffee lovers out there. What follows is a brief overview of what cold brew is, what it isn't, where it came from, what types there are, and how you can make it for yourself!

What cold brew is

What makes cold brew, cold brew is the fact that it's brewed cold! While that may seem like a lot of repetition for a single sentence, it's an important point to be aware of, as some beverages purport to be cold brew that really aren't (see next section).

When we say brewed cold, what we mean is not brewed hot like most coffee. Where you typically brew coffee somewhere between 80ºC and 96ºC, cold brew is made somewhere between fridge temperature (~º4C) and room temperature (~20-25ºC).

Now, before you run off and dump tepid water into your Aeropress hoping for tasty results, it's also important to note that cold brew almost always involves longer extractions as well... much, much longer. To counteract the slow extraction that results from the lack of heat, most recipes will recommend brew times somewhere between 4 and 24 hours.

Interestingly, almost all cold brew methods, makers and guides out there aim to produce coffee concentrate which you can then dilute with water, over ice, or even with some type of milk (if deep down you don’t actually like coffee).

What cold brew isn't (iced coffee)

One thing we need to clear up right away, is that cold brew is not the same thing as ice(d) coffee! Iced coffee is coffee that is brewed hot, usually in some sort of conventional method, and then cooled down. Sometimes, it’s cooled down almost instantly, as you might do with a brewer like the Hario V60 Ice Coffee Maker, but that still doesn’t make it cold brew.

The cup character of cold brew has a lot more to do with the fact that it is brewed cold than with the fact that it’s consumed cold. In fact, even if you warm cold brew back up (not as crazy as it sounds), it’s still going to taste different from hot brewed coffee from the same beans.

Where did cold brew come from?

Well, we don’t know for sure actually. You may hear cold brew referred to as ‘Dutch’ coffee or ‘Japanese cold drip’ and you’d be right in inferring that cold brew may have originated in one of these two countries. We do know that coffee has been cold brewed in those places for many years, possibly even as far back as the 1600s. Some theorise that it was the Dutch who introduced it to the Japanese, but nobody seems to know for sure.

The interesting part is that cold brew has actually been around a really long time. One has been able to buy concentrated cold brew in places all over the world for at least a few decades.

You could say that the modern history of cold brew started in the 1960s however, when Todd Simpson invented the Toddy Coffee Maker, which you can still buy today. Interestingly, he had the idea after a visit to Guatemala where he witnessed some bucket-based cold brewing in action. The origins may be very obscure, but there’s no question that Todd & his Toddy helped to (re)popularise the drink in the US, from where it launched its invasion of the rest of the world in the last decade.

For further reading, check out this article from Daily Coffee News

What’s all the fuss about?

If you’ve made it this far, you probably are at least a little bit interested in cold brew coffee, but it’s worth pausing to take a moment to reflect on why cold brew is so much the rage these days. In our eyes, it offers a few unique characteristics that have some coffee lovers hooked:

1. It’s cold - We may be stating the obvious, but some people don’t like to drink hot coffee on a hot day (we don’t have this issue).
2. It tends to be lower in tart acids - Because of the absence of hot extraction, cold brewed coffee can be a bit more mellow on the acids. Some companies even market it as more digestion friendly.
3. It’s got a full body and nice mouth feel - While it tends to be less acidic, cold brew is no slouch on body or mouth feel; the long extraction times see to that.
4. It can be brewed in big batches in advance - Aha! A reason for the lazy coffee lover to rejoice. You can whip up a couple of litres of cold brew and keep it in your fridge for a few days, rather than brewing fresh each time.
5. It lends itself to bottling - This explains its commercial success as a ready to drink, though we’d recommend making your own.
6. It’s what the cool kids are drinking - Let’s be honest, cold brew is all the rage.

There are two types of cold brewers

Perhaps you’re so intrigued by cold brew that you’re ready to start making some yourself. Before you immerse yourself (too easy), you’ll need to decide which one of two cold brewing methods you want to pursue.

Immersion

Todd’s famous Toddy is a great example of an immersion cold brewer. In immersion-based cold brew, you mix the water and coffee grounds in some sort of a vessel, and then filter at the end, after your desired extraction time has elapsed. Immersion cold brewing is usually cheaper and easier, but some coffee aficionados would argue that you lose some of the finer qualities of cold brew made by the drip method.

Immersion Pros	Immersion Cons
Less expensive equipment Easy to execute Easy to mark large batches	Loss of some cup clarity Harder to ‘dial in’

Cold drip

Cold drip is the cold brew method favoured by most speciality coffee establishments. The most famous example is probably the Yama Cold Drip Tower, which you may well see towering somewhere behind the espresso machine at one of your favourite coffee places.

Cold drip cold brew is definitely a bit more technical and requires a little bit of know how and ‘dialing in’. It also requires more expensive equipment, but the results can be particularly refreshing and tasty, as this method provides greater cup clarity and often helps to accentuate more subtle flavours and ‘top notes’ in your coffee.

Cold Drip Pros	Cold Drip Cons
Greater cup clarity More flavour complexity	More expensive equipment More technical

There is a newer generation of cold drip coffee makers such as the Izac 700 for home available also these days. These can offer at least a more compact option, and in some cases a more affordable way, to make cold drip coffee at home.

How to start chilling out with cold brew

If you want to explore the world of cold brew, the easiest place to start may be coffee that’s been cold brewed by someone else (who knows what they’re doing). Bottled cold brew is unfortunately quite hit and miss. You’ve got to worry about things like freshness and the quality of the ingredients. If you happen to have access to a speciality coffee roaster or cafe that is brewing fresh batches every week, you should definitely pay them a visit.

We do think that a lot of the fun in coffee comes from making it yourself though, so when you’re ready to start cold brewing, check out our collection of cold brewing options. If you’re new to the cold brewing game, you don’t need anything fancy. Start with a simple and affordable immersion brewer like the Hario Bottle. You could even just use a simple coffee plunger for your first few attempts.

Once the cold brew bug has bitten and you want to explore the finer side of cold brew, you may want to invest in a higher end cold brew coffee maker. However, the result will only ever be as good as the quality and freshness of your beans will allow. You can’t make great cold brew from mediocre coffee. We’d suggest investing in quality, fresh beans (and a burr grinder), before any cold-brew-specific equipment.

If you need advice on which option to choose, we’re always here to help. Say hello on live chat or send us a message using our contact page.

Happy (Cold) Brewing! 

7 Things I Learned Interning At Cape Coffee Beans

As an intern at Cape Coffee Beans from the beginning of June to August, I learned more about coffee than I ever expected. As your stereotypical college student who is always on the go, I never got to spend time brewing speciality coffee. I always just grabbed a cafe latte or americano to go, thinking that was all I would ever need. After spending hours on hours working with different types of coffees and brewing styles, I realized I was doing it all wrong! I decided to create a little blog post about my experience working at Cape Coffee Beans and share a couple of the things I’ve learned about the world of coffee.

1) Brewing method makes a difference

When Phaedon first told me that certain coffees could taste different depending on the brew method, I must admit that I didn’t entirely believe him. I thought to myself, “how could a style of brewing affect a coffee’s flavor?”. I figured if a coffee was roasted a certain way, it would have the same flavor no matter which method you chose to brew it with. Through a bit of experimentation, I found that certain coffees that were less to my liking in a pour-over would taste great in a French press and vice-versa. The method of extraction seems to accentuate certain characteristics more than the others, creating two different cup profiles. I’m now taking note of which coffees I enjoy in which brew method.

2) You can brew a cappuccino at home with a simple machine

Whenever I thought of brewing a homemade latte or cappuccino, the first image that popped into my mind were those fancy espresso machines you see at cafes or restaurants. I knew those were out of my budget, so I’ve always opted for take-away lattes from my local cafe. Then I discovered the Bialetti Mukka. It’s an all-in-one cappuccino maker that is small, portable and brews coffee and froths milk on a stovetop. It may not be quite the same thing as a barista-made cappuccino, but I still think it’s a game changer as it hits the spot without the big investment. For cappuccino lovers who just want a single milky coffee drink in the morning, it may be just the ticket.

3) Don’t buy pre-ground coffee

Quality obviously trumps quantity when it comes to coffee. After settling for pre-ground coffee at home for most of my life, I had become used to the taste of stale coffee and I didn’t even know it. I always bought pre-ground because it seemed more convenient. I figured since pre-ground coffee is usually sealed tight, the coffee would stay just as fresh as coffee straight from a grinder. I came to realize within my first day of work at Cape Coffee Beans that I was wrong. Brewing coffee with freshly ground beans creates a flavor that is impossible to get with pre-ground coffee. I even started to drink my coffee black (which is something I usually never do). I’m really glad to be heading back to The States with my going-away-present Hario hand grinder, as I don’t think I’d be able to go back to pre-ground coffee after tasting it fresh!

4) It’s a lot of fun to try different coffees

My home town is a little area in The United States, located in the state of New Hampshire and is the complete opposite of a city. There a few different coffee shops but I had tasted all of their coffees and picked my favourite years ago. Instead of expanding my search in coffee, I would visit this same coffee shop weekly and buy the same thing over and over. I never knew I was missing out on so many unique coffee flavors. Working at Cape Coffee Beans and trying dozens of different coffees, from numerous different origins, opened me up to a new spectrum of flavour to enjoy. Each coffee has something unique to offer which adds a little bit of excitement to the usual morning coffee routine.

5) There are real coffee geeks out there

Before I started interning at Cape Coffee Beans, I would have almost considered myself a coffee geek. By knowing the different types of roast, all the different brew methods (or what I thought was all of them) and having knowledge of the different styles of coffee drinks, I thought I was the ultimate coffee lover. Having worked here opened my eyes to an entire world of coffee I didn’t even know existed. Talking to many different customers, I learned that South Africans are serious about their coffee. Cape Coffee Beans has a group of customers and clients who go above and beyond for a good cup of coffee. Some even go to the different brew competitions on the hunt for the perfect coffee and I aspire to reach that level of coffee fanaticism. I must admit that when I moved here, I didn’t even realize that people were weighing their beans to get a consistent brew ratio. Having lived with coffee-loving Capetonians for two months, I’ve learned I have a long way to go to become a real coffee geek.

6) Espresso doesn’t have more caffeine than a cup of coffee

Somewhere along the way of my coffee journey through life, I had gotten the idea that espresso has more caffeine than a regular cup of coffee. In reality, a double shot of espresso only has 80mg of caffeine whereas filter-style coffees can have a lot more. Whenever I thought of a latte or americano, I would associate it with a higher caffeine content. Little did I know that a regular cup of coffee would have done the trick even better than my espresso drink of choice. After switching to pour-overs, I could already see a slight improvement in my Monday morning work speed.

7) Entrepreneurship is worth the long-term efforts

My entire life I have wanted to open up my own business which is why I was so excited about coming to South Africa to work for Cape Coffee Beans. I needed the experience of working for a start-up company and being able to watch them grow. I had taken many entrepreneurship classes but I knew it would be more informative to experience a small business first-hand. I had the opportunity to work with two great entrepreneurs, Phaedon and Dianne, who own Cape Coffee Beans and Studio2Pilates, two successful small businesses that I was lucky enough to immerse myself in, while observing what makes them operate efficiently on a day to day basis. Although it involves hard work (and very few days off) I can see the efforts pay off when you are doing something you enjoy. Even just interning for two months, I started feeling a sense of satisfaction when CCB had a big day of orders or I saw more people at a pilates class. This has given me a little taste of what it would be like to open up a business and I feel grateful to have learned many tips that I will use in the future when it comes time to open my own.

What is the point of coffee?

When I started Cape Coffee Beans, I didn’t really think about this question. Coffee was just fun, interesting, and at that time very new to me. I thought I saw a business opportunity in something which stirred a bit of passion and enjoyment, so I jumped in. I now look at coffee through a very different lens; a few years running a business is bound to change one’s perspective. Experience has given birth to more questions than answers though, and I suppose it’s inevitable to start asking fundamental questions about the things you spend every day thinking about.

Recently I’ve found myself wondering about what might be the most fundamental question: what is the point of this whole coffee thing? Why do I and so many people devote ourselves to this beverage? What is the appeal? What is the reason that it matters so much to even mere consumers of it?

One can’t deny the importance of coffee - it pervades our rituals, our cultures and our olfactory senses, at least in most urban centres. So many people enjoy it, many people even rely on it, and a small group of people have devoted themselves to pursuing it at its very best. So why all the fuss?

Is it merely a pleasant stimulant?

One might be tempted to give a simple answer to this question; it’s all about the kick. Coffee seems to be one of the few perceived vices that scientific research is condoning from a health perspective. It wakes you up and gets you going, at no significant cost to your health (apparently even with some health benefits).

For many people this may well seem to be the answer. In fact, much to my chagrin, I’ve witnessed plenty of participants in the industry turn the dialogue about coffee to the strength of its stimulant effect. The unfortunate reality is that for a large part of the coffee-consuming public, you may well be able to reduce coffee’s raison d’etre to the caffeine.

Yet there does seem to be much more going on here when one reflects a little bit on this reductive idea. In this day and age, stimulants come in much more potent and much more convenient packages, flavoured with sugar and all the tasty chemicals you could possibly dream of. One can’t deny that energy drinks have taken off in a big way, and yet coffee persists. It shows no sign of being replaced by easier to purchase and consume stimulants, which require no preparation at all. Plenty of people will still take the time out of their morning to either brew, or trudge to their nearest cafe for their coffee fix, even those people who might say that they only drink coffee for the kick.

Perhaps subconsciously, even those who drink coffee for its stimulant effect share a little bit of the perspective of the group of coffee drinkers I consider myself part of. There are those among us for whom the caffeine in the cup is very much a secondary consideration. We know we love coffee for the flavour, the ritual, the intrigue, the ongoing pursuit of the never quite attainable perfect cup. Don’t get me wrong, we also love our morning jolt, and it’s probably not a good idea to speak to us before our first cup, but that’s not what gets us excited, and that’s not what motivates us to spend hours of our week brewing coffee by hand. There are easier ways to get that fix.

Is it simply another food product?

One idea that shows some merit is that coffee is simply part of our broader love of food. There are very few people who don’t understand the appeal of a delicious meal, and food plays an even bigger role in our cultures and daily routines. We all love flavour, and human beings are hard-wired to get a lot of enjoyment through eating, so perhaps coffee’s underlying appeal is simply that it taps into this primordial pleasure center that is triggered by consumption.

The connection with food almost definitely plays some part in coffee’s following, but I think that this falls short of providing an adequate explanation, if for no other reason than the fact that coffee provides almost no nutritional value. There are virtually no calories in a cup of black coffee; it’s not a source of sustenance. Sure, it’s often accompanied by calorie-laden milk, cream, sugar and sometimes even more elaborate concoctions, but there are plenty of other dairy & glucose delivery systems out there.

In anticipation of the protests, it is true that coffee is actually quite a good source of antioxidants, but so are many other foods. I really don’t think many people are drinking coffee simply to add more antioxidants to their diet, though many do like to use the antioxidant factoid to justify the coffee drinking that they would do anyway.

For these reasons, I don’t think coffee can really be lumped into the food category. We don’t seek out coffee for sustenance - we consume it for something else.

Is it just another commercial product?

Of course plenty of products exist for no other reason than the fact that someone has spotted a commercial opportunity. In this day and age, a product doesn’t necessarily need to have much intrinsic value to capture the public consciousness; it just needs to have good marketing.

One could look at coffee through this lens. It is after all big business, and no writing about coffee would be complete without a hackneyed reference to it being the second most traded commodity on the planet. The reality is that commercial considerations have played a large part in elevating coffee to the cultural status it now occupies, but I would argue that this isn’t what keeps it there.

If you look at the coffee industry, it starts to become clear that the companies that are making big money are really just consumer goods companies - consumer experience companies even. They could be selling anything, and while that might actually seem like an argument in favour of the commercial hypothesis, I think it’s undermined by a look at the other parts of the industry.

Where real quality is pursued in coffee, I believe that much less profit made. As many people know, many of the growers of quality coffee (and commodity coffee for that matter) are poorly rewarded for their efforts, but I’ve also come to believe that the artisans, merchants and craftsmen further down the supply chain who have devoted themselves to high quality coffee aren’t setting themselves up for maximum commercial gain.

The most interesting part of the coffee industry, commonly referred to as speciality coffee, is definitely not the most lucrative. Almost by definition, costs are high, production scales are small and so the revenue and profit opportunities are limited. Yet this is the part of the industry that is doing the most interesting things, pushing the envelope and stirring the greatest passion in the consumers of coffee. It doesn’t seem that coffee is all about the money.

So what is the point of coffee?

All of the ideas mentioned so far in this essay do of course contribute to its prominence in our culture. Coffee would not be what it is if it weren’t tapping into our love of flavour, our desire for stimulation or our pursuit of profit to some extent, but I really don’t believe that any or all of these can account for its importance in our world. So what is all the fuss about?

I would argue that coffee taps into a desire we have to be more closely connected to the natural world, as clichéd as that might sound.

It’s worth reflecting on the fact that, in a world abundant with technology, almost all coffee brewing still amounts to little more than grinding up beans and adding hot water. Sure, a new coffee gizmo is released every day, and the top end of coffee machinery gets ever more elaborate and expensive every year, but this simply isn’t how most cups of coffee are made. Most coffee is still just made by adding hot water to ground beans, in some kind of simple receptacle. It’s quite a straightforward process, one that requires little more in the way of technology than something to crush the coffee and heat for the water.

I think this simplicity in preparation, and its inherent manual nature has a lot to do with the appeal, whether you’re executing the brewing process yourself or not. It makes you realise that it’s not about the brewing as such, it’s about the coffee itself. The process of brewing is releasing the flavour, comfort and enjoyment that already exists in this agricultural product.

The fact that coffee is an agricultural product is the second aspect of its appeal. We live in a world where the agricultural products that make up our food are ever more elaborately disguised. Thankfully, there are movements away from this trend, but they reveal another reality about modern agricultural that is potentially even more stark: that variety is sorely lacking.

Real food advocates like Dan Barber and Michael Pollan often talk about the incredible diversity that our ancestors had in their diets - dozens of varieties of carrots, hundreds of apples (if my memory serves me correctly) - but on today’s grocery store shelves we have just a few types of apples, and only one type of carrot. The situation in coffee is entirely different.

In the world of coffee, there are already dozens of varieties of Arabica that are standard fare in any speciality coffee shop, and what’s particularly exciting is that these numbers are growing. I’ve had the experience several times of late, of turning over a bag and spotting a variety name that I hadn’t even heard of before. Things are getting more diverse rather than less so.

It’s this diversity in coffee that ultimately drives a lot of its excitement as well. We drink coffee for the flavour, and what determines that flavour is in large part the variety of the coffee that is grown. Throw terroir, farming practices and postharvest processing into the mix, and you’ve got endless flavour possibilities, all determined by the simple ancient acts of planting, growing, harvesting and preparing seeds.

When we drink coffee, it’s the fruit of these labours that we’re enjoying. We look for the surprises in the cup that are the results of this very natural toil. The endless possibilities and variations, both subtle and significant are what keeps us coming back. I think they’re ultimately the reason that even the most stimulant-reliant coffee drinker is reaching for a cup rather than a brightly coloured can. Coffee is a unique opportunity to enjoy the fruits of nature and agriculture in all their glorious, unadulterated diversity. And of course, it tastes pretty good and gives you a kick in the morning too...

- Phaedon | Founder of Cape Coffee Beans