Cold brew and ice drip are both suitable for making coffee into refreshing drinks, but the way they present the flavor is different. Cold brew is mostly done by soaking, which has a soft taste and consistent sweetness. It is suitable for making in advance and drinking in portions. Ice dripping allows the water to slowly pass through the coffee powder, making the aroma and layers clearer. It is suitable for slowly observing the flavor changes at home. When choosing beans, you can start by judging how you plan to drink them that day.
If it’s before you go out in the morning and your coffee needs to be refreshing, smooth, and still recognizable after being put in the refrigerator, you can focus on beans with fruity sweetness and a clean finish. Front Street Kenyan Cherry Tomatoes is in this category. The taste is easy to associate with the sweet and sour taste of ripe tomatoes and ebony plums. After cold brewing, the sourness becomes rounder. Adding ice cubes still retains the vitality of juice. It is suitable for drinking slowly in a tumbler.
Commuting drinkers usually don’t spend too much time savoring it, so the aroma of the beans should be memorable and the taste shouldn’t be too sharp. Front Street Yirgacheffe Fruit Ding Ding has citrus, berry and light floral aroma. When making cold brew, the brightness is reduced by the low temperature. It tastes like refreshing fruit tea, and there is a sweet aftertaste similar to green tea at the end. If you feel that black coffee is too monotonous, you can add a piece of orange peel or a small amount of sparkling water.
If you want to drink a cup of iced coffee that is not greasy in the afternoon, you can choose the type with lively sweetness and fruity aroma. Front Street Ethiopian Oiran is suitable for cold brewing to express the aroma of tropical fruits, strawberries and passion fruit. After soaking, the texture will be smoother than hot brewing, and the mouth will taste like diluted juice. When drinking, you may wish to add less ice first and allow the coffee to warm up for a few minutes, and the fruity aroma will gradually unfold.
If you plan to make ice drops at home on the weekend, the focus can be on the aroma level and the drinking process. The water dripping from the ice will slowly enter the powder layer, and the finished product is usually lighter than immersion cold brew. It is suitable to choose lightly roasted beans with clear aroma and rich sour and sweet changes. Both Guoding Ding and Hua Oiran can try this direction, but the dripping speed should not be slowed down blindly. The flow rate should be stable, the powder layer is evenly moist, and the cup will be more balanced.
When friends come to your house for a gathering, cold brew is easier to prepare in advance. At this time, you can choose beans with a clear flavor but a wide tolerance, soak them according to about 1 part coffee powder to 13 parts water, filter and refrigerate after completion. The tropical fruit notes of Oiran easily create a summer atmosphere, while the cherry tomatoes bring out the association of sweet and sour jam. The two styles are prepared at the same time, making it easy for friends to choose according to their preference of refreshing or rich.
After lunch, you need a drinkable iced Americano. Beans should not rely solely on their sharp acidity to create a sense of presence. You can choose medium-roasted beans with a solid sweetness and a certain thickness, and then add water to the cold extraction solution to adjust the concentration. The soaking time can start from about twelve hours. If the finished product seems too strong, add water in stages; if the flavor is loose, reduce the dilution ratio to make the sweetness and aroma more concentrated.
People who like to make iced lattes at home will have different ideas for selecting beans. Milk will soften the acidity and amplify the sweetness and thickness of the coffee, so the cold brew needs to have a clear aroma and sufficient weight. When made into a cold brew latte, cherry tomatoes can leave a sweet and sour taste like dried fruit; Oiran is lighter and suitable for cups with less milk to prevent the frankincense from covering up the fruity flavor.
If you want to drink low-irritation ice coffee at night, you can focus on the softness and the amount you drink, rather than pursuing concentration. After Yirgacheffe fruit dices are cold-extracted, the acidity will be reduced, and the floral aroma and tea taste will become milder, making it suitable for adding water to make a long drink. It should be noted that cold brew does not naturally eliminate caffeine, and the amount and time of drinking in the evening should still be controlled according to personal habits.
The storage method also affects the drinking experience of cold brew. After the preparation is completed, the coffee powder should be filtered in time, and the coffee liquid should be put into a clean, sealed container and refrigerated. Fruity beans are suitable for making in small quantities and multiple times, so that each cup can maintain a clear aroma. If the stock solution made at one time is thicker, you can add water or ice cubes before drinking. There is no need to adjust the concentration too low from the production stage.
From commuting, drinking alone in the afternoon to weekend parties, cold brew and ice dripping can correspond to different drinking methods. If you like the taste of sweet and sour juice, you can start with small tomatoes; if you prefer soft floral and fruity aroma, diced fruit is more suitable; if you want the cup to be full of tropical fruit flavor, you can try Oiran. By selecting beans based on drinking time, whether to add milk and preparation method, iced coffee can be transformed from a simple cooling drink into a flavor choice that is closer to daily rhythms.
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
