On such a hot day and in such hot Guangzhou, sipping iced coffee is simply one of life's great pleasures. Maybe everyone drinks too much iced coffee, but what is cold brew coffee? Why doesn’t every coffee shop have it? Today Front Street is here to educate everyone about the cold brew coffee category.
The production process and principles of cold brew and American style are completely different! To put it simply, the biggest difference between the two is "temperature", or more precisely, the extraction temperature. Iced coffee, such as iced Americano and iced hand-brew, is a cold drink we get after making hot coffee and adding ice cubes to cool it down.
As the name suggests, cold brew coffee is iced coffee extracted with cold water. It is in a low-temperature environment throughout the process, so the extraction efficiency is slow and the production time is long. However, it also has less bitter and sour taste and a more balanced taste.
Let’s first introduce the characteristics of cold brew coffee:
Taste sweeter: The flavor molecules in coffee are dissolved in order. The aromatic small molecules will be extracted first, and then the bitter and heavy macromolecules will be extracted. When brewing coffee with hot water, too many bitter molecules are dissolved due to improper temperature and time control, making the coffee taste bad. Cold brew coffee is extracted with cold water for a long time, and only small molecules such as fruit acid and floral aroma are dissolved. The taste is more fragrant and smooth, showing the best original flavor of coffee. Not bitter or sour is the main reason why cold brew coffee is loved by many people.
Storability: When any food is heated, it becomes perishable due to the destruction of its molecular structure. The tasting period of coffee brewed with hot water is very short, and the aroma will begin to lose if left for more than half an hour. Cold brew coffee does not undergo a heating process, so it has a very long shelf life. It can be kept fresh in the refrigerator for two weeks after extraction. The fermentation process will also produce different levels of aromatic changes in the taste of the coffee. It is generally recommended to store the extracted cold brew coffee in the refrigerator for 1-3 days before drinking it for a better flavor.
Does not hurt the stomach: Many people with bad gastrointestinal problems will stay away from coffee because of the stomach pain caused by ordinary coffee. Cold-brewed coffee lacks many of the irritating molecules in hot-brewed coffee. It is mild and rounded and does not hurt the stomach. It is a healthier choice.
Front Street Cold Brew Coffee Beans Recommendation
Whether it is the Guangzhou store or the online Taobao store, Front Street Coffee offers more than 40 different types of coffee beans, including single-origin coffee beans and Italian blended beans. Many friends will buy a few bags of coffee beans when they enjoy a cup of coffee in Front Street. Some friends make cold brew at home and ask what coffee beans are suitable for making cold brew coffee. In fact, all types of coffee beans are suitable for making cold brew coffee. Cold brew coffee made from coffee beans from different production areas will have different flavor expressions.
This time FrontStreet Coffee plans to use hanging coffee bags to make cold brew. Here are 10 types of hanging coffee listed by FrontStreet. You can choose according to your own preferences.
How to make cold brew?
Step 1: Prepare two packs of ear-hanging coffee
Grinding thickness and parameters are indeed troublesome for many people. Fresh grinding requires preparing a grinder first, which is too costly. At this time, only two bags of fresh ear-hanging bag coffee can easily meet the requirements for making cold brew coffee! Simple and affordable! The cold brew coffee here is made using the Front Street Strawberry Candy Bag, which is a Gesha blend made from Costa Rica and Panama. It has the flavor of raisins, strawberry fudge, and pink flowers, and is suitable for a variety of methods.
Generally, the extraction of cold brew coffee is slower, and less substances are extracted than hot water extraction, so the ratio of powder to water is larger, usually about 1:10. In other words, a pack of hanging ears (10 grams of powder) is mixed with about 100 grams of water, and the coffee grounds absorb water. In the end, you may only get about 80 grams of cold brew coffee. After waiting for such a long time, of course you have to make more at one time to drink.
Step 2: Soak and refrigerate
Prepare a container, no matter what material it is made of, it can be plastic, glass, ceramic, etc. It doesn't matter whether it has a lid or not, but make sure it is deep enough to hold coffee and water. First, open the ear bag, pour the coffee powder into the container (don’t throw away the ear filter bag! Keep it for use!), then add the ice-water mixture. Low-temperature extraction is the characteristic of cold brew coffee. Extraction with 4°C water and extraction with 24°C water will give you different flavors~
Stir gently and evenly. Make sure your coffee powder is moist and soaked. Then put it in the refrigerator to soak for 12 hours. The soaking time is very important. If the time is not enough, the extraction will be insufficient and the flavor will be weak. If the time is too long... it will be very hard to wait! Ha~
Step 3: Filter
After a full 12 hours of waiting, the coffee steeping and extraction is finally completed! At this time, you need to prepare a cup for cold brew coffee. Have you lost the filter bag on the front? Pour the soaked cold brew coffee into the filter bag and wait for it to be completely filtered, and you will have your cold brew coffee.
That’s it, it’s a super simple way to have delicious cold brew coffee, and it can be kept in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. You can add ice to adjust the concentration, or add milk or other things you want to flavor. Slow work leads to careful work, cold brew coffee is like the essence extracted by time, every drop is so precious. Whether it’s to beat the heat or to try something new, if you love coffee, you definitely can’t miss the delicious taste of cold brew coffee!
Cold brew coffee can be very strong. You can make the coffee less strong by adding water or ice cubes. Some people mix equal parts water and coffee. How much ice or water you add depends entirely on your preference.
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
