With the pace of summer, Front Street has also ushered in another peak season for drinking iced coffee. If you don’t want to go out but want to cheer up in this sleepy afternoon, making a refreshing cup of cold brew coffee at home is perfect.
Different from ordinary hot water brewing coffee, the so-called cold brew mainly uses cold water (normal temperature water) and coffee powder to mix, let it stand for several hours in a low temperature environment, and finally filters out the powder grounds to obtain the iced coffee liquid. With a bag of coffee, a clean, airtight container, water, and a refrigerator, you can achieve the freedom of cold brewing at home.
In fact, compared to the strict parameters of other extraction methods, cold brewing is very compatible. From the selection of coffee beans to the sealed container, to the ratio of powder to water, grinding thickness, and soaking time, it has a wide range of control. In other words, as long as you don't use a particularly extreme combination of parameters, you can make iced coffee that tastes good.
Because cold brew coffee has its own icy taste, when drinking it, you are more likely to pursue a rich floral and fruity aroma or a refreshing taste. Therefore, compared to dark roasted coffee, it is easier to get a delicious cold brew from light to medium roasted coffee beans.
If you want an iced coffee that tastes like floral tea, buy Front Street Panama Butterfly. This washed coffee bean contains 70% Gesha variety. It is undoubtedly a very cost-effective coffee bean. When used to make cold brew coffee, it will show a clean and fresh floral, citrus, and oolong tea flavor.
Many people like fragrant and sweet cold brew coffee, so the first choice is Front Street Strawberry Candy. This is a powerful combination that combines Costa Rica honey-processed coffee and Panama Geisha. The iced coffee has the aroma of grapes, roses, and strawberry gummies. As the brewing time increases, it will also develop a tonality like fruit wine. In addition, the highly sweet cold brew beans include Front Street Claw, Front Street Blackberry, and Front Street Big Belly Button.
However, some friends encountered a problem during the experiment: although they used the same coffee beans and the parameters were "copied", the cold brew they made was not as rich and sweet as the ones they drank in the store. Why is this? Front Street has summarized several key details here. Friends at home may wish to check themselves accordingly to see if the problem comes from here.
1. The soaking time should not be less than 8 hours and not more than 18 hours
In hand brewing, we pay special attention to water temperature and time. Because water is the main medium for brewing, the temperature directly affects the extraction efficiency of coffee. If it is too high or too low, it will change the taste of the coffee. Similarly, if the time is too long, it will be over-extracted, and if it is too short, it may be under-extracted. Since cold extraction is only in contact with low-temperature water of 4-10°C throughout the entire process, the extraction efficiency is very slow. Therefore, it is necessary to extend the soaking time to release more aroma substances, thereby allowing the compounds such as sugars and organic acids to be more fully dissolved, and the resulting coffee to be more balanced in terms of acidity, sweetness and body. Under normal circumstances, it is usually recommended to control the soaking time of cold brew coffee between 8 and 18 hours.
Front Street once conducted a cold brew experiment with time as a variable. Equal amounts of Front Street Panama Butterfly Coffee were ground and soaked for 4 hours, 10 hours, 16 hours, and 24 hours respectively. In the end, I found that the 4-hour coffee had almost no aroma and tasted light and watery; the cold brew brewed for 24 hours was slightly bitter in the mouth and showed signs of over-extraction; the 10-hour and 16-hour coffee groups showed the best flavor, with the former having a refreshing taste and the latter being richer.
If you are worried that you cannot remember the time, you can also refer to the "lazy man" method on Qian Street. Start soaking from 7 to 9 o'clock the night before, and filter it to separate the residue from 7 to 9 o'clock the next morning. In this way, the time will be controlled within the conservative range of 10 to 14 hours.
2. Coffee beans that are too fresh will also affect extraction.
In many high-temperature brewing methods, fresh roasting is often the first factor that many people consider, because the aroma of beans that are not within the tasting period will be greatly reduced. This is a consensus that everyone has already reached. Secondly, the discharge of gas allows us to intuitively judge whether the coffee beans are fresh or not, such as the oil in the espresso, the bulge during steaming, etc. It also shows that the coffee is at the peak stage of the best aroma.
The coffee beans are continuously heated in the boiler. The freshly roasted beans contain a large amount of carbon dioxide. If you want to extract the aromatic compounds inside, they must be discharged first. Cold extraction itself is a relatively static extraction state, and low-temperature water inhibits the release of this gas to a certain extent. It is conceivable that coffee brewed with "fresh beans" is prone to under-extraction. If you are not in a hurry to drink it, Front Street believes that it is best to use coffee with a roasting date of more than 10 days for steeping. This will be more conducive to us making a cold brew with rich aroma.
3. Stir thoroughly before and after extraction
Many newcomers are quick to do this. After adding water, they just cover it and put it in the refrigerator. The surface of the coffee powder looks wet, but in fact, some parts of it are not exposed to water, so the dry part of the coffee is obviously not involved in the extraction. In addition, after standing for a night, most of the particulate matter has settled at the bottom of the container. If you pour it out and filter it directly, there is a high probability that you will only get the upper light-colored liquid, and the taste will not be very good. Therefore, the "stirring" action must be included when making cold brew.
Judging from previous experience, if you use a pot with a larger capacity, you can use a stir stick or a long spoon to stir the coffee powder and water evenly before placing it in the refrigerator. After taking it out, stir it for a few times before filtering. When you are using a sealed water bottle, just shake it up and down gently after capping.
4. Thoroughly filter the powder residue to make the cold brew taste better.
There are many options for filtering coffee grounds, such as the built-in filter of the cold brew pot, metal filter, filter paper, flannel filter cloth, etc. The size of the filter pore structure is different, and the particulate matter that can be effectively blocked is naturally different. Take the cold brew pot used by Front Street as an example. The mesh size of the filter is 245 mesh, which is considered a relatively high-density type. However, fine powder and ultra-fine powder may still precipitate out. If it is not filtered again at this time, there will be a floc-like oily sheen floating on the liquid surface. The flavor of coffee is not much different from that after filtering, but the rough feeling left on the tongue will be obvious when swallowing, and there will be some visible powder residue at the bottom of the cup after drinking.
For a better drinking experience, Front Street will use higher-density filter paper to sift it once, which can not only effectively filter out ultra-fine powder, but also block more than 80% of condensed grease. After separating out the powder residue, Front Street will also put the cold brew coffee liquid into a sealed refrigerator for 3 to 4 hours, until the flavor substances are further precipitated and matured. In this way, the cold brew tastes full of flavor, clearer in taste, and more transparent in acidity.
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
