Cold extraction
Coarse coffee steeped in cold water for 12 to 18 hours. Low acidity, heavy sweetness, and completely different from iced coffee.
Cold brew is coffee steeped in cold water for a long time. No heat at any stage.
Temperature decides which compounds dissolve. Many of the acids that give hot coffee its brightness need heat to extract, so they largely stay in the grounds. What does dissolve at room temperature is the sweeter, heavier, more chocolatey material.
The result is smooth, sweet and very low in acidity — and it loses most of the floral, citric character that makes a light Ethiopian interesting. That is a trade rather than an improvement.
As concentrate: 1 part coffee to 8 parts water by weight. 125 g coffee to 1 litre. Coarse grind, cold water, stir once, refrigerate 12 to 18 hours. Strain through a paper filter or a press.
Dilute one to one with water or milk to serve.
Ready to drink: 1:15, same process, no dilution.
Coarse, as for a French press — fines make it cloudy and bitter, and they are much harder to strain out cold.
12 to 18 hours. Under 12 is thin; past about 24 it turns woody. Room temperature extracts faster than the fridge, so shorten it if you leave it out.
Medium to dark roasts and chocolatey origins — Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia — suit it. Delicate light roasts are wasted, since the qualities you paid for are exactly the ones cold water does not extract.
Concentrate keeps about a week refrigerated in a sealed bottle. Diluted, drink it within a couple of days.
No. Iced coffee is brewed hot and chilled, keeping its acidity and aromatics. Cold brew never gets hot, so the acids never fully dissolve — the result is smooth and sweet with far less brightness. They taste completely different.
Concentrate does, because it is brewed at a much tighter ratio. Diluted to drinking strength it is broadly comparable to hot coffee, sometimes slightly higher because of the long contact time.
The equipment this actually requires — not a shopping list, the shortest route to doing it properly.
1 L · steel mesh · borosilicate glass
Full immersion, full body, and no paper to buy ever again. The cheapest genuinely good brewer here — and the one most ruined by grinding too fine.
Best for: Big-bodied dark and medium roasts, and anyone who does not want to buy papers.
≈ $45 / £35 / 38 €
64 mm flat burr · filter only · single dose
64 mm flat burrs, near-zero retention and a footprint the size of a mug, built for filter and honest about not doing espresso. For pour-over it is the clearest grind you can buy at this price.
Best for: V60, Chemex, AeroPress and batch brewing, where clarity is the whole point.
≈ $345 / £275 / 300 €
An inner lid you push down to force the air out, so the beans sit in almost no oxygen. Oxygen is what makes coffee taste flat after a fortnight, and this is the cheapest way to slow it down.
Best for: Anyone buying beans by the kilo rather than the 250 g bag.
