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Finding the right beans for cold brew isn’t a complicated task. Get my best tips on how to do it right here.
Asser Christensen
Driftaway is an American coffee subscription company that is serious about cold brew. The company has launched a coffee club only catering to cold coffee connoisseurs.
The coffee comes pre-ground and packed in individual mesh bags. This implies it couldn’t be simpler. You don’t need any fancy equipment, just put the cold brew bags into a vessel with the right amount of water and steep for 16 hours.
You can purchase bags individually, or sign up to the subscription service. With the subscription, you get three different flavor profiles in your first package; bright, balanced, or bold. At that point you can settle on your most loved for future deliveries.
Use the code and get 10% off: GIFT10
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This roaster is one of the pioneers of modern American coffee. Intelligentsia is famous for sourcing their beans directly from the best farmers.
This blend is a classic all-rounder. It’s a medium to dark roast with all the lovely, roasty flavors that old school coffee drinkers crave. However, then the roaster has added a bunch of lighter high altitude beans that bring a welcome lime and pineapple fruitiness to the party.
This one would work well for both cold brew and Japanese iced coffee. Both with or without milk.
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Stumptown knows what they are doing. These guys are legit roasters. Their Hairbender blend is their most popular coffee, as it’s incredibly versatile. You can brew it in both a French press, espresso, and yes; a cold brew coffee maker, with excellent results.
It’s a little on the dark side, which is usually the best way to go when it comes to cold coffee.
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This brand is all about darkness, destruction, and caffeine overdose. Death Wish claims to be the most potent coffee on the planet. This makes it suitable for cold brew and mixing with milk, as you usually need some strong stuff to kick through the creaminess.
Probably, it’s also good for a quick pick me up cold brew on a lazy sunny day. Drink Responsibly!
See more reviewsHere’s a little secret that most of the roasters won’t tell you: An espresso blend is often pretty epic for a cold brew – especially if you’re going to add milk to it.
This particular blend is from Onyx – one of the most respected American coffee companies as we speak. The flavor notes of this coffee speak for themselves: Dark Chocolate, Molasses, Dried Berries, Red Wine, Thick & Syrupy. Damn!
If you are a real connoisseur, brew this one hot and pour it on top of frozen milk-cubes.
Here’s a blend of Colombian coffees that is pretty dark roasted and pre-ground, so you don’t have to do anything. Regarding flavors, it’s a low acidity concoction with the typical pleasant flavors of dark chocolate and caramelization.
The cost appears to be about appropriate for it is, and it’s suited for cold brew. This particular brand gets excellent reviews on Amazon, and it seems that all customers are satisfied with how freshly roasted it is.
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Bizzy is one of the most popular cold brew coffee brands on Amazon. According to the roasting company, they have been developing the recipe for five years. Allegedly, even the grinding is “special” and somehow better than other brands. I don’t really see how that can be the case, since the technology is more or less the same for everybody unless, you’re Nestle.
However, Bizzy might be delicious for cold brew due to other reasons. The blends consists of beans from Peru and Nicaragua roasted to various degrees, and they are also organic.
If you want to find out what the Bizzy “buzz” is about, then go ahead and try this cold brew coffee bean blend.
See more reviewsLet’s start out with a swift look at what makes cold brew so unique – and in some people’s opinion, inferior.
Typically, coffee is brewed at around 200 °F. This temperature ensures proper extraction. Some flavor compounds of coffee, especially the fruity and acidic ones, only extract with water that’s close to boiling.
These flavors are usually what hardcore coffee geeks are looking for when they are shopping for the best beans possible.
In that sense, it just seems like a waste to brew the same beans around room temperature, where you’ll miss out on all these delicious flavors.
However, what cold brew is lacking in the fruity spectrum it makes of for with a heavier mouthfeel and body and the flavors we associate with it: Nuts, chocolate, and dried spices.
To fix some of the issues inherent in cold brew, serious coffee lovers (including myself) prefer the Japanese style of iced coffee.
The way you do, it is to brew a regular pour over but instead brew directly on the rocks.
This way you extract the fruitiness from the coffee, while still getting a cold and refreshing drink on a summer day.
It’s usually great to go for a 60:40 ratio of water to ice.
So let’s say you’re brewing a regular serving of coffee; 33 grams coffee to half a liter of water. That becomes 300 grams of water and 200 grams of ice. Easy!
No matter whether you’re going to opt for cold brew or other styles of ice coffee, I think it’s smart to consider the roast of the beans.
Are you going to drink your cold coffee with milk? If so, remember these guidelines:
Iced coffee with milk can be delicious but only when combined with a coffee that has some of the sharper, roasty flavors.
On the other hand, lighter roasts of say, Ethiopian coffees, can be very interesting when served cold.
This is also true for modern coffee contraption such as the espresso tonic, where you mix tonic water with strong coffee or espresso.
Many people have the impression that cold brew can only be made with an extremely coarse grind setting. I have no idea where this idea comes from, but it’s not making the extraction very efficient.
You have to remember that water is a solvent that tries to pull out flavors from the coffee bean. The coarser the beans are, the more difficult it is for the water to do its job.
This is especially the case when the water is cold. For that reason, I wouldn’t use anything coarser than filter or French press for my cold brew. However, again, this also should be considered in conjunction with other things such as:
A common question is whether you should go for single origin coffee or a blend, when it comes to cold brew. Usually, I’d say the former, but in the case of cold coffee, I think that the best beans could easily be a blend.
For me, cold coffee is about mindless summer fun. Not about serious coffee drinking. I’m not going to try to dive in and explore the true essence of the bean when cold brewing coffee.
Since single origin coffee is usually more expensive than blends, it could be considered a bit of a luxury to use in this extravagant way.
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Further Reading: The 10 Best Flavored Coffees in 2020
Further Reading: No jitters? Here are The Best Decaf Coffee Brands
Hello, and welcome! I'm the editor & founder of this site.
I have been a coffee geek since I started home roasting more than a decade ago. Since then, coffee has taken me on countless adventures: From ancient coffee ceremonies in Ethiopia to the volcanos of Sumatra.
My background is in journalism, and today I'm also a licensed Q Grader under the Coffee Quality Institute.
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