What About Cold Brew Coffee Health Benefits & Better Taste? * My Simple Healthy Recipes #23

By Nath @ BEAUTYCALYPSE

Drink coffee cold and never look old? – Let’s have a look at the Cold Brew Coffee trend and see if it’s easy to make and healthier than normal, or hot brew coffee.

“She prefers sharp to flowing lines, brooding to pouting,
and rock and roll to country and western. […] The Winter
Woman likes her men weak and her coffee strong.”
― Christopher Moore, Bloodsucking Fiends

* * *

“If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone
would search for the double meaning.”
– Mae West

Often called a trend with health benefits, Cold Brew coffee has become really popular lately – but it’s not a brand new thing really. The method’s exact pedigree remaining obscure, modern-day cold brew pioneers in the Western world have been on the market for 50 years.

Coffee nerds today discuss best devices and best coffee-to-water ratio, best bean variety and best brewing time – not unlike other foodie alchemists such as wine experts, craft beer nerds or tea enthusiasts.cold-brew-coffee

Cold Brew Fact Check
A Fancy Name For Iced Coffee?

It’s incredible but there is some real confusion. To answer this question upfront: NO. Cold brew coffee is not the same as iced coffee.

It is of course possible to make quite delicious iced coffee FROM cold brew coffee, and I’m sharing my favourite little trick at the end of this post.

Cold Brew Fact Check
It’s Not Raw Coffee

Sometimes I see people claiming that cold brew coffee is the same thing as raw coffee. Well – it’s not neccessarily the case.
Raw coffee in the proper meaning would be made of not roasted beans: beans that look slightly green(ish) and come with different properties and taste. The trendy Cold Coffee we’re talking about here however is made from roasted beans, just without the heat.
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Cold Brew Fact Check
Cold brew, Carl!

Sometimes the cold brew systems look like fancy props from a steampunk movie: tubes, copper bowls, strange, lab-like glass vials. Just without the steam obviously!

There’s the Toddy, the Oxo, the exotic-looking Yama drip system… Google them all if you like 😉 But the easiest methods to make cold brew coffee remain low-tech: use your favourite French press or a simple ceramic coffee dripper (alternatively, for the design-loving ones: a Chemex or a Hario).
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Yay to zombie-apocalypse-friendly coffee-making.
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Making A Cold Brew Coffee

Now that you know which
✔︎ device
you’ll be using, all you need are:
✔︎ a few days to experiment with coffee-water-ratio and brewing time,
✔︎ medium grind beans, the coarser, the better, that you cover with
✔︎ room temperature water (start with an 1:8 ratio),
✔︎ and then some 8 to 12 hours steeping time (some like it strong: with up to 24 hours).
✔︎ When brewed, strain/filter and store in bottles or jars in the refrigerator.

how-to-make-cold-brew-coffeehow-to-make-cold-brew-coffee-ceramic-drippercold-brew-coffee-concentrateThe obtained concentrate, or extract, filtered, will be good for 2 weeks, stored in the fridge.
tagging-cold-brew-concentrateThe taste and aroma are very different from its hot brewed counterpart – it’s in the solubility, you know. Also, do experiment with different bean varieties.
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To enjoy, mix the concentrate with warm or cold water (not ulike making an Americano from an Espresso). Some prefer to enjoy it pure, so here it’s the time to really find out what suits you best: find out your best beans to water ratio for steeping, and your favourite concentrate to water ratio for drinking your delicious cold brew.

Health Benefits, If Any?

Coffee beans are little wonders of nature, and the beverage known as coffee is basically a solution of the beans’ compounds in hot (or cold) water. In the news, coffee has been declared both a deadly health sin and health-boosting goodness. Some scientists claim that coffee (no milk, no sugar, just pure coffee) can protect from diabetes*, heart disease** and certain forms of cancer***, others warn that it’s extremely acidic and harmful in a variety of ways****. Well, the dose makes medicine, right?
Those who embrace the good news and binge on coffee thinking a lot will help a lot, are certainly as wrong as the folks who run away in panic from any little droplet of this beverage. There’s a lot of wisdom in that thing called moderation!making-cold-brew-coffee(* Source 1 , source 2, ** source, *** source, **** source.)
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The good news is that cold steeping decreases the acidity of coffee.
Claims that cold brew contains less caffeine should be taken with a grain of salt: if coffee is steeped for 12, 18, 20 hours in a ratio of 1 part coffee to 3, 6, 8 parts water, the caffeine intake of the beverage might as well skyrocket, especially if the concentrate is enjoyed pure.
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Cold Brew, What’s Next:
Ready-To-Use Goodness

Having some cold brew concentrate handy in your fridge means that you can offer a bunch of friends a variety of coffee-based beverages – in the blink on an eye!

cold-brew-coffee-pumpkin-spice-latteorganic-pumpkin-spice-latteRice milk, infused with organic spices – cinnamon, clove, ginger – and sweetened with delicious, caramel-like coconut sugar, softly heated in a stove and foamed, makes an excellent tox-free Pumpkin Spice Latte.
.almond-milk-cappuccino
Pour the cold brew extract over ice for an iced coffee or latte, mix with hot water (1 to 1) with foamed plant milk or milk for an “instant” latte or cappucino.
And in summer, use the concentrate to make coffee ice cubes for a delicious Iced Coffee!

I hope this somewhat lengthy post has answered all your pressing cold brew coffee questions and sparked your interest in finding your own, personal favourite recipe!

About Nath @ BEAUTYCALYPSE

Geeking out about all things truly green, healthy and ethical over at BEAUTYCALYPSE.com (Avatar illustration by A. Goncharenko)

16 Responses

  4. life in blush (@lifeinblush)

    This is great, so, so great!! I’m a huge fan of cold brew so knowing how easy it is to make is going to be a game changer. Thanks for the information and great recipes Nath 🙂

    One question, I bought a bottle of cold brew on a trip and didn’t put it in the fridge until a few days later. The company said since its not pasteurized it wouldn’t be safe to drink, but if it’s only coffee and water what’s happening to it to make it unsafe? I feel like this is an obvious answer that I’m just not seeing :S

    Have a great weekend hon! xo

    1. BEAUTYCALYPSE

      Hey luvvie, thanks for dropping by! Always good to see you ❤

      Re your Q: coffee (the beverage) consists of water and solubles from the beans, oils included. I'd say it can go bad without cooling, get mouldy for example.

    1. BEAUTYCALYPSE

      It’s the COLD coffee that rejuvenates. Hehe, that’s the trick 😉
      What’s your fave coffee beverage?

        1. BEAUTYCALYPSE

          Aaah. They got too acidic for me in fact. So I switched to a simple ceramic dripper, and the Vietnamese espresso blend (it’s 4 different coffee varieties, very fragrant, and they serve it with sweetened condensed milk – which I skip, or use unsweetened rice milk)

            1. BEAUTYCALYPSE

              They serve it in all Vietnamese restaurants here in Berlin and probably in all Vietnamese restaurants in the world 🙂 You should try it!

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