Cold brew
Including cold drip, sold in Korea as Dutch coffee, and nitro cold brew
Cold brew is coffee made without heat: ground coffee steeps in cold or room-temperature water for many hours and is then filtered, usually as a concentrate that is diluted and served over ice. Cold drip, sold in Korea as Dutch coffee, gets there another way, with cold water dripping through the coffee one drop at a time.
At a glance
- In the cup
- Coffee and water, brewed cold
- Time
- Hours rather than minutes
- Served
- Usually over ice, often diluted from a concentrate
- Variants
- Cold drip (Dutch coffee), nitro
Is cold brew less acidic?
Less than is often claimed. A 2018 study in Scientific Reports brewed six coffees hot and cold at the same coffee-to-water ratio. The pH of the two was comparable, between 4.85 and 5.13, but the hot brews had more titratable acid and higher antioxidant activity. Cold brew can taste softer; measured by pH, it is not much less acidic.
Source: Acidity and Antioxidant Activity of Cold Brew Coffee, Scientific Reports (2018)
What is Dutch coffee, and how is it different?
Dutch coffee is cold drip. Instead of sitting in water, the coffee sits under a reservoir of cold or iced water that drips onto it slowly, and the concentrate collects below. Steeped cold brew and cold drip both avoid heat; they differ in how the water meets the coffee.
The name is usually explained by a story of Dutch traders brewing coffee cold on their ships. We found no record that supports the story, so treat it as the origin of a name rather than of a method.
What is nitro cold brew?
Cold brew infused with nitrogen and poured from a tap, which gives it a creamy texture. Reporting on the drink in 2016, Eater noted that claims to the first nitro coffee vary between 2011 and 2012, that Portland-based Stumptown installed nitrogen taps in its cafés in June 2013, and that Starbucks planned to serve it in more than 500 US stores by the end of that summer.
Source: Starbucks Introduces Nitro Coffee, CNBC, from Eater (2016)
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