WHAT COLD BREW ACTUALLY IS
Ask ten people what makes cold brew different from iced coffee and you’ll likely get ten different answers, most of them wrong. It’s not just coffee that’s been chilled. It’s a different way of extracting flavour altogether, and it’s worth understanding properly if you’re wanting to serve it in your cafe, or drinking it at home, on repeat.
Cold brew is coarsely ground coffee steeped in cold or room-temperature water for 12 to 24 hours, then filtered. No heat involved at any point. That long, slow steep pulls out the coffee’s natural sweetness without dragging along the bitterness and sharp acidity that heat extraction brings, so what you’re left with is a smooth, low-acid concentrate with a rounder mouthfeel than iced coffee made by just chilling a hot espresso.
why it's great for cafes.
A few reasons cold brew earns its spot on so many menus. It’s gentler on the palate, which makes it an easy entry point for customers who find hot coffee too sharp. It batches well: brew a big jug, strain it, and it holds in the fridge for about a week, so it’s one less thing to make to order during a rush. And it’s flexible, served straight over ice, cut with milk, or used as the backbone for something more like a Mont Blanc or a spritz. One batch, a lot of places you can take it.
Let’s talk coffee. We like to use single origins for a more refined, delicate brew – especially over ice. You’re generally looking for a medium/light roast coffee – we highly recommend any of our seasonal singles or our MVP blend goes hard as cold brew too. If you prefer to have it with milk, you can try a bolder espresso blend to help with the cut through.
how to make cold brew.
- Coarsely ground coffee
- Cold or room-temperature filtered water
Equipment:
- Large jar or pitcher – these days you can also get your hands on dedicated devices like the Toddy or the Hario Mizudashi cold brewers, but you don’t need them to make a good brew.
- Fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth – or you could use a reusable cheese cloth bag with a drawstring like @morgandrinkscoffee
- V60 / dripper / other filter brewer plus a filter paper
Method: Combine the coffee and water at a 1:15 ratio (65g coffee to 1L water is a good starting point). Stir gently to make sure all the grounds are wet, cover, and steep in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours. Strain through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth to remove the grounds.
To make sure there’s no excess sediment remaining, we like to do a final pass through a filter paper – just pop your filter paper into any filter brew device (V60, dripper, etc) – make sure you have something underneath to catch it) and pass the cold brew through again slowly. This will give you a much cleaner end result.
adjusting the ratio.
The coffee-to-water ratio is your main lever for strength and flavour, and it’s worth changing up depending on what kind of brew you’re going for, rather than sticking to one number:
- Standard RTD (served straight over ice): 1:15, or 65g coffee to 1L water. This is our default.
- Milk base (built a bit stronger to hold up once milk goes in): 1:12, or 85g coffee to 1L water.
- Concentrate (for batching in bulk and diluting to taste later): 1:5, or 200g coffee to 1L water.
A few things that make a real difference regardless of ratio: use freshly ground coffee, keep your equipment clean, and stick to a coarse grind, too fine and you’ll end up with over-extraction and sediment in the final brew.
That’s your cold brew sorted. From there you can serve over ice, add a dash of milk or use this as the base to create something special. Head back to the learn section of the blog for more recipes and how-to’s.
