The weather is warming up, and if you're anything like us you'll soon be longing for a cold-brewed coffee to perk you up and cool you down.
Cold brewing produces a different flavor profile to preparing coffee using hot water, extracting the sweeter compounds from the beans while leaving most of the bitter notes behind for a drink that tastes noticeably smoother, and is perfect on its own, as an iced americano or latte, or in an after-dinner cocktail.
It's a very different drink to a shot of hot espresso poured over ice, which will be both less smooth, and diluted as the ice melts.
The big drawback to making cold-brew coffee the traditional way is time. It takes a lot longer for flavor compounds to dissolve in cold water, so you need to prepare your cold-brew coffee the day before you want to drink it, by steeping ground coffee in cold water and leaving it in the fridge.
Thankfully though, that's no longer your only option, as an increasing number of home coffee machines now offer a dedicated cold-brew mode that uses cold water and high pressure to achieve the same (or a very similar) taste in a fraction of the time.
Several coffee roasters I've spoken to this year have been excited by the advances in home coffee machines, and having tested several I can confidently say the results are very impressive.
If you're looking for a way to make cold brew at home in seconds rather than hours, here are three of the best options available right now (and they all make fabulous hot espresso as well).
The Ninja Luxe Café is one of the best coffee makers released so far this year, capable of making filter coffee, espresso, and cold-brew – and doing all three well. It's surprisingly affordable too, retailing at half the price of many of its rivals. Our reviewer found it easy to use, despite its wealth of functions, and only lamented that there's no option to use its automatic steam wand to texturize milk manually.
If you don't have much space for a coffee maker in your kitchen, the La Specialista Touch should definitely be on your shortlist. It takes up much less space than most of the best bean-to-cup coffee machines, but still brews an excellent espresso, and is easy for even beginners to use thanks to its color touchscreen controls and smart tamping guide. Its cold-brewed espresso is ideal for summer drinks, and nearly as flavorful as that from the much more expensive Jura J10 below.
The Jura J10 produces the most well-rounded cold-brew coffee I've had from a machine. Unlike earlier Jura models, the J10 uses pulses of high-pressure water, which extracts more flavor from the freshly-ground beans. If your usual coffee order is particularly complicated, you'll also love the syrup infusion system, which adds your preferred flavor to the milk as it's foamed. During testing I found it made both hot and cold foam more stable, so it lasts to the last sip.
Cold-brew chemistry
If you're interested in learning more about the chemistry behind cold brewing, and why your favorite beans taste so different when extracted at low temperatures, the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has published a paper by researcher Dr. Mackenzie Batali and the team at the UC Davis Coffee Center, which delves into the effect of temperature on sensory and chemical attributes.
"In reviewing the sensory panelists’ evaluations, we identified four key differences between cold and hot brewed coffee, regardless of the coffee brewed," concluded the team. "Hot brewed coffee was perceived as more 'bitter', 'sour', and 'rubbery'. cold brewed coffee was perceived as more 'floral'."
The impact of cold brewing also varied depending on the type of coffee used, and the darkness of the roast, with darker roasts brewed at low temperatures presenting more 'woody' aromas. It's well worth experimenting with different coffees to see what you prefer, as your favorite coffee for brewing hot might not be your first choice when brewed cold.
Recipe ideas
The mild taste of cold-brewed coffee is a great partner for other flavors, and goes particularly well with fruit. Here are a few ideas to give you some inspiration.
- Iced coffee with salted caramel cold foam by Ninja
- Iced coffee with peppermint cold foam by Ninja
- Cold sweet blue latte by Jura
- Cold brew ginger apple by Jura
- Iced lemon espresso by De'Longhi
- Berry tonic mocktail by De'Longhi
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