Coffee ABC - C is for Cold Brew

As soon as the sun's out and the mercury rises above 20°C, y'all call for cold drinks.

There are other cold coffee beverages like Iced Coffee, Caffè Freddo, Freddo Espresso... but Cold Brew has been where it's at for the past few years and for good reason. It is simple to make at home - even without fancy equipment.

Cold Brew is extracted with cold water and uses time rather than heat as an aid for extraction.

How to do it: Preferably use a coarse ground filter roast (ca. 100g / Liter water) and fully immerse with cold water. A french press or a large jar or jug work quite well. Keep closed in a cold place (like your fridge) for 24 hours. Then scoop off the crust before filtering the cold brew through a fine metal mesh sieve, metal filter or cheese cloth. Don't attempt to filter it through a paper filter - the fines will clog the filter super fast.

Stored airtight, cold and unsweetened, your Cold Brew will keep for a few days. Enjoy pure on the rocks, with some milk or tonic!

There's more to cold coffee though - so if you're keen on exploring, check out the other possibilities of summer coffee:

Cold Drip also uses time instead of temperature to extract the coffee. This method requires some dedicated equipment though as cold water is slowly dripped drop by drop through a bed of ground coffee. In contrast to Cold Brew which is like a cold bold filter coffee, Cold Drip is more like a very intense concentrate and it's recommended to dilute before drinking.

Flash brew is another filter coffee style cold beverage which is brewed hot but immediately cooled after extraction. How to do it: Use your favourite brewing method and recipe (manual or automatic) and drip it directly into a cold vessel optionally containing cooling (but not melting!) elements. Be very careful when using glass vessels for this method as the temperature difference can cause the glass to crack. It's better to use a metal vessel standing in a cold bain-marie or similar. 

Japanese Iced Coffee is a manual method where using whichever device you prefer and substituting 50% of your water with ice which is placed in the vessel you are brewing into. This way you are adding an ice-cold bypass and immediately chilling the extracted coffee. 

Iced Coffee is the more unspectacular method: Just chill your coffee and drink it when it's cold. Make sure you are using good quality coffee that stays tasty even when it's completely cooled off.

The Espresso Tonic is an espresso pulled over ice cold tonic water (and ice). You will be surprised how refreshing and tingling this beverage is.

An Iced Latte is a single or double espresso added to your cold milk. Very simple but easy to make. Play around and try different milk alternatives - like coconut milk, oat milk or almond milk to give it a twist.

The Shakerato is an Italian favourite in the summer, a single or double espresso is sweetened, shaken with ice in a cocktail shaker and strained into a chilled Martini glass. You can make this without sweetening obviously.

Freddo Espresso is a beverage enjoyed in Greece. They use an electric mixer but similarly to the Shakerato the espresso is combined with ice cubes, given an intense spin and then strained over ice into a glass.

Need sweetening? If you prefer your cold coffee sweetened use a homemade simple syrup - it will dissolve better than granulated sugar. It's literally simple to make and will dissolve properly in your cold drink.

How to make simple syrup: Boil water and add sugar 1:1 or 1:2 or however "thick" or sweet you want the syrup to be. Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved and let the liquid cool down. Easy as ABC. Pour the syrup into a sterilized bottle and keep it in your fridge or freezer.

You may wonder which beans to use for cold coffee drinks? We recommend using a filter roast for all Cold Brew / Cold Drip / Japanese / Flash Brew and an espresso roast for the other (espresso-based) drinks. But hey, feel free to experiment with different roast levels for different drinks and see what you like best.

If you're keen on trying new things, here are some ideas:

When making cold brew, use hot water for the bloom and follow up with cold water.

Adding milk or milk alternatives to any of the beverages (except Espresso Tonic) adds another flavour component and texture.

Keep leftover or extra shots of espresso in an airtight container, then use it for flavouring homemade ice cream, frozen yoghurt etc.

Use those extra shots of espresso (or fresh ones) to make ice cubes, then add those to a cold coffee beverage, cocktail or chilled milk drink.