What Does Cold Brewed Coffee Taste Like?

I’ve always been curious to experience cold brewed coffee, so today I gave it a try.

Here’s the ingredients I used:

  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/3 coarsely ground coffee (a courser grind makes for easier filtering)

After grinding the coffee, I combined it with the water in a plastic air tight container, and let it steep for about 3 hours in the fridge. After the 3 hours, I filtered it through the cup from my espresso machine (should have used cheesecloth or a fine strainer, but I didn’t have one.) I then poured the filtered coffee over ice, and added an equal portion of water. (the steeped coffee is very strong after cold brewing.)

Since I had never tried cold brew before, I wanted to taste it in its purest form, so I didn’t add any cream, sugar, or flavorings.

I was actually pleasantly suprised with the taste. Here’s how I would describe the experience:

  • Taste: Cold brew has a very strong coffee flavor on the front. There wasn’t much of a lingering finish though.
  • Body: The body was very full, probably due in part to the fact that I could have done a better job straining it. But what the heck, I always like a little coffee sludge in my espresso anyway :)
  • Aroma: A strong espresso smell in the glass, but not much of an aroma comes up after a swallow, though I wouldn’t expect much of one without the heat

The verdict? If you like iced tea, give cold brew coffee a chance. I look forward to exploring cold brew more in the future.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 1:57 am and is filed under Experiments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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