Cold Brew Coffee: A Different Adventure

The consumption of coffee is a delightful way to face every day for millions of wired consumers across the globe. Hot, cold, iced, black, with or without milk or sweetener, strong or weak; coffee is king, queen, and maybe even prince in some insecure nations.

Thirty percent of all coffee drinkers make drinking coffee the most important element to any morning, and brewing a cup comes first before any other morning routine. Coffee satisfies that inward scream all of us stifle each morning at the thought of the day ahead of us. Coffee temporarily obliterates morning stress like an eraser to chalk on a board, at least until the cup is finished. It has even been known to make some of us smile as we stare into the refreshing brew and see our facial expressions reflected.

The cold brew coffee making process:

Cold brew coffee is very different than other conventional types and should not be confused with iced coffee, which is usually brewed hot and then chilled by pouring over or adding ice. To add to the confusion, the term is also sometimes used to refer to cold brew coffee that is served on ice. In other words, you are on your own when it comes to using this term.

Most experts agree cold brewed coffee is sweeter in flavor. This is primarily due to its lower acidity, which is the result of the cold press process in which coffee beans are never exposed to higher temperatures. Roasted coffee beans are comprised of many diverse compounds, such as certain oils and fatty acids. Extracting flavor from the beans produces a completely different chemical profile than the more traditional methods. The deliciously flavored compounds and some of the caffeine are extracted but the bitter oils and undesirable fatty acids are left behind.

Fatty acids and that familiar coffee “bite”

These unpleasant fatty acids surface and linger at the top of your hot coffee cup, and are responsible for the acidic taste that drives eight out of every 10 coffee drinkers to add milk or cream to their desired brew. In the case of the cold brewing process,  the resulting taste is perfectly smooth and balanced and can be served hot or cold.

Of course, the words ‘bite’ and ‘serve’ can be used in more ways than one. Consider the image below depicting a smiling Morticia of The Addams Family succumbing to her private, dreadful urge to be joyful by having a disembodied hand, her old friend, Thing, pour her daily brew for her.

Give the cold brewing process a try for your next morning cup of coffee. Don’t be afraid to step out of your “caffeine box” and try something new. If the Arab culture hadn’t dared to do so by introducing coffee to the western world so many centuries ago, none of us would even know about this fabulous beverage today. And then how would anyone ever wake up in the morning?

 


When you first heard about it, did you think cold brewed coffee meant drinking it cold? Did you know the Arabian culture was the first to introduce coffee to the Western world?


Additional Images: Wikimedia

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M. Dee Dubroff
M. Dee Dubroff
My name is Marjorie Dorfman and I am also known as M Dee Dubroff. I am a freelance writer and former teacher originally from Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of New York University, I taught in New York City schools for a few years before finding my true calling as a writer. I now live in Doylestown, PA with one cat named Mr. Biscuit and my significant other, a graphics artist and former designer of postage stamps, both of whom keep me on my toes at all times.