I don’t even try to keep up with the latest trends in coffee anymore. I know what I like (Nespresso). I have one every morning. I move on with my day.
Then I was assigned a story on St{r}eam, a bike powered beverage cart that specializes in cold brew coffee so I set out to track down the creator, Jodi Eichelberger. I found him, and his cart, on the Greenbelt that runs along the Boise River on a hot Saturday afternoon and here started my education on cold brew.
This is not a beverage for the procrastinator nor the impatient. Jodi hand grinds the coffee that he gets from a local roaster right down the street. Filtered water drips from an inverted bottle at the breakneck speed of one drop every second and a half into the grounds, eventually working its way through making the transformation before exiting at the other end. It takes six hours of this drip, drip, dripping to fill a 750mL bottle and it’s a round the clock process to keep the cart stocked with inventory. All of this investigative work is making me thirsty and thankfully about then a sample comes my way. Before I can reach for my usual coffee accouterment, Jodi suggests that I give it a try first. Cold brewing has 70% less acid than it’s hot counterpart so that bitterness that I’m trying to disguise with milk and sugar isn’t there. It’s amazingly smooth allowing the flavor of the coffee to really shine.
I write my story and don’t think that much more about it until I was leaving my friend Patti’s house and on the way out the door she hands me a glass bottle filled with dark liquid. She’d just made a batch of cold brew and thought I might like to try it, adding that I could borrow her set up anytime. I was back a couple days later to do just that.
She has the Toddy Cold Brew System and while not quite as elaborate as the imported version used by St{r}eam, it’s the same principal. Coffee grounds are layered with water and sit overnight. In the morning, there’s a small plug at the bottom that is opened and the brew works its way through a filter and into a carafe. The major difference would be the time the water is in contact with the coffee so it seems like perhaps this latter method would make for stronger coffee but I’ll need to do a side by side taste test to confirm if that’s the case.
It’s amazing how much a 12 oz bag of coffee made. I ran it through the first time and came away with a carafe of dark, strong java juice. On the suggestion of Patti, I ran a second batch of water through the same grounds the next day and added some toasted coconut (also Patti’s suggestion) for an added flavor dimension.
Now with two big jars of cold brew, I’m armed and dangerous (and not surprisingly, writing this much later at night than I normally would be). It’s definitely a concentrate, so I add water or a little almond milk to get it to the desired strength. Now I’m dreaming of uses outside the obvious. Cocktails. That definitely heads up the list. Ice cubes. Maybe in a marinade or baking. And if you’re still a hot coffee lover, add hot water to this concentrate and enjoy a steamy drink that’s less acidic.
All I can say is either I’m going to be super charged for the foreseeable future, or the next batch needs to be decaf.
