Visiting coffee shops every day can be fun until you get to the register and have to pick something from the menu. There are so many types of brewing methods for coffee and various types of espresso drinks, that it might be hard to figure out what makes them all different. Isn’t cold brew just a fancy way of saying iced coffee?
It turns out, cold brew coffee is different from a cup of iced coffee in the way that the beans are prepared. For a cold brew, coffee beans are soaked in water that is somewhere between cool and room temperature for about 12 hours or more. Iced coffee is simply hot coffee poured over ice.
Of course, 12 hours is a long time to wait for coffee. If you’re in a hurry and didn’t prep your cold brew the night before, a hot coffee over ice might work just fine if you need cold caffeine. If you do take the time to make cold brew though, you’ll notice the richer flavors, a more smooth beverage and you might even feel a stronger buzz.
This is because of the cold brew’s long brew time. Hours of soaking the beans leads to a less acidic finish from hours of extracting the full flavors of the beans, and thus the full strength of the bean’s caffeine. Since hot coffee is brewed so quickly, there will be a more acidic aftertaste, and then when it’s poured over the ice, the ice will melt and make for a final product that tastes watered down. If you’re still perfecting your at-home coffee brewing, these tips and tricks will turn you into a barista in no time.
Cold Brew Coffee
Ingredients
4 3/4 cups cold filtered water
12 tablespoons coarsely ground coffee
Directions
Grind (or purchase coffee ground) to a coarse texture.
Place grounds in steeping vessel or directly into the container to which the water and grounds will steep.
Let steep for two days in the fridge.
Remove grounds when it reaches desired strength.
