As you might have already gathered, there's a lot more to cold brew coffee than simply having a lower temperature than regular, hot coffee!
Cold brew is coffee that's brewed using cold water. Hot brew is coffee that's brewed using hot water. The difference in preparation techniques creates unique tastes, aromas, and chemical compositions. The application of hot or cold water will determine which ingredients are released or activated during the brewing process.
1. Cold Brew Has Lower Acidity, Lower Bitterness
Extraction, as you know, happens when water dissolves and pulls things out of coffee grounds. These can be sugars, acids, particles that dissolve, oils, and other stuff.Different temperatures pull out different things at different speeds. .
Cold brewing, however, plays by different rules. The cold water doesn’t just slow down the extraction of these yummy compounds. It actually changes what is extracted and what stays behind in the grounds.
Tests have shown that cold brewed coffee can have 66% less acidity and bitterness when compared to hot coffee.
The acids that normally become bitter in hot coffee (even with proper water temperatures) don’t get extracted. The acids that add a sharpness to hot coffee don’t oxidize (which happens really fast with hot water) to be extra tangy and acidic.
2. Cold Brew Is Far More Versatile
Hot coffee is hot coffee. It’s rich, it’s satisfying, it’s cozy—but it’s hot coffee. There are a few mixed drinks you can make with it, but it’s not really something most people would consider versatile.
Cold brew coffee, on the other hand, can be made into a variety of drinks. You see, the process of cold brewing doesn’t produce a ready-to-drink brew—it creates a concentrate that can be paired with many other ingredients. Here are a few ways you can use the concentrate: Iced Coffee ,Iced Cold Brew Latte, Cold Brew Cocktails, Coffee Kombucha etc.
The list goes on and on. If you like to explore and pair flavors and ingredients, cold brew will provide an avenue for creative drink-making.
3. Flavors Can Change Dramatically
Great hot brewed coffee has a rounded flavor, a satisfying aroma, a gentle sweetness, a crisp acidity, and a hint of lower bitter notes to wrap it all together. Great cold brew coffee has a smooth flavor, a rich sweetness, a very gentle hint of acidity, and virtually no bitterness.
Cold brew doesn’t have the rich aromas that hot brewed coffee does right off the bat, but there’s a really good reason for it.
You see, when the aromatic coffee oils are hot, they’re what we call volatile (which basically means they’re able to evaporate quickly).
DD Recommendations :
Hot Brews : Sleepy Owl Hot Brew Bags Assorted , Beanly Master Blend Pour-Over, ARAKU Micro Climate Coffee Pouch
Cold Brews : Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters Cold Brew Can, Rage Coffee Cold Brew Coffee, Bili Hu Cold Brew Coffee Bottles
