Thank you for saying this. When cold brew first came out, it was promoted as a brewing process that resulted in smoother (I'm guessing lower acidity) tasting coffee. Heating it up seemed natural, and its use in iced coffee seemed simply opportunistic. (In my experience at least).
Then it quickly caught on as a novelty, with nitro et al, and when I tell people I drink cold brew warmed I get looks of confusion or turned up noses.
Barismo in Cambridge does (or did) a "hot draft" coffee, that is always on tap, is delicious, and is remarkably like hot cold brew. Their method is apparently a secret (although I'm sure more digging could find it), but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't basically on-demand heated cold brew. [1]
As far as I can recall, I've always considered "cold" to apply to the brewing, not the drinking. I learned the technique as "brew extra strong, then add hot water to taste", and that's how I've been doing it since I bought my first cold-brew maker.
Where I live we don't get a lot of hot weather, so drinking cold brew cold is strictly a high summer activity for me.
me, too. the Toddy brewer 30 years ago, even spoke of this. It was a way to premake your coffee concentrate, and then mix with water and microwave to heat up....
Coffee popsicles are easy to make. Or put coffee in an ice cube tray, freeze it, & use it instead of water ice when making a regular "iced" coffee. No dilution as the ice melts!
Yes!!! I’m biting my tongue a little on how infuriating the process has been to ask cafes for warmed cold brews, but you’re spot on and exactly right. I’m baffled that so many people who sell coffee for a living, think they know a lot about it, and act like coffee snobs, don’t seem to understand what cold brew even is. (Or, in a few cases in my sampling I’m certain it was willful ignorance, laziness, because it takes a little more work and more space to cold brew.)
I will say that one of my local cafes understood completely and they’re happy to make hot cold-brewed coffee, and made me feel welcome for asking for it. One or two others were very good about it, but hands down the majority of cafes were a bad experience when asking for a warmed cold brew. Good luck to them, they’ve lost my business.
In my experience having worked in coffee shops, restaurants and bars, there is a considerable overlap between the people asking for something off-menu that nobody has ever asked for, and the people who will never be satisfied with their order.
It might seem like a very simple ask, but I think many people working in those jobs have learned it can be expedient to just say “we can’t do that” and short circuit the interaction, rather than to attempt whatever it is, have the customer send it back, attempt it again and have the customer start insulting them for not being able to “get it right”. This is particularly the case if there’s any sort of line, where one person sending something back will make every other customer angry.
I’m not at all saying you are doing this yourself, just offering context on why you might encounter this reaction.
As in many fields, a fraction of people are kind of awful and unfortunately their behavior winds up shaping how many things operate.
I can understand that. I do feel like the reaction I’m sometimes getting is reflexive and not given any thought. My daughter worked at Starbucks for a while, and told me about crappy customers doing this all the time - ordering drinks with questionable modifications and then sending them back when it wasn’t as good as they hoped. Her initial reaction to my steamed cold brew story was that I’m asking for something unusual. For the record, I have never sent back a warmed cold-brew for any reason.
That said, part of what I’m blabbering on about is that I think cold-brew served hot should not be considered off-menu, I don’t think that’s entirely fair. Since cold brew served cold is an assumption in the first place, it seems like hot cold-brew is (or should be considered) just as on-menu as cold-served cold-brew. It’s fine that the assumption exists, I just don’t understand the pushback when I specify warm. I feel like calling a steamed cold-brew off-menu is exaggerating, considering that a) iced coffee exists; b) steaming espresso drinks is extremely common(!); c) many cafes that make espresso drinks essentially offer all combinations of brewing process, coffee, milks of various kinds, and flavorings. It’s so crazy to me to get shit for asking for a steamed cold-brew when something like a Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino with an Affogato shot and extra espresso exists and isn’t even considered weird or extreme. Maybe some cafes are pushing back against customers with Starbucks expectations, but they still offer a selection like espresso, cortado, mocha, latte, americano, flat white, blah blah blah. It’s like Mexican food, there is a name for every possible permutation of grounds, water, milk, sugar, and heat. Given that they have cold-brew, that they have a steamer, and that serving hot coffee and steaming things are both standard every-day every-order kinds of things, I simply can’t understand why I’d get pushback even if I am asking for something weird. I’m asking for something weird that is completely and trivially doable.
Anyway, you’re right. I know I’m peeing into the wind just a little. It is what it is, which is why it’s a waste of energy to fight it or complain about it. :P
I like this idea. Today I just talked the nearest cafe into trying a steamed nitro cold brew. The owner said it was a slightly weird idea, but liked it and agreed to make it whenever I ask.
> I’m baffled that so many people who sell coffee for a living, think they know a lot about it, and act like coffee snobs, don’t seem to understand what cold brew even is.
Light roasts came (back?) into style among coffee snobs a few years ago because it highlights the difference between different sources/regions/whatever. Ever since then, the former best coffee shop in my town has been exclusively producing sour, vegetal, under-extracted brews. The justified reaction to Charbucks among coffee snobs has produced an objectively worse cup of coffee.
Light roasts are great! But there are just a lot of straight-up bad renditions of them, as a result of lack of adequate training on either roasting or brewing, to the consternation of many of those coffee snobs. Unfortunately, this just happens when shops follow trends.
Roasting well in general is already quite challenging and is a lot more than just arriving at a certain bean color or temperature. Vegetal flavors are very much a roasting mistake that's being passed off as an inherent characteristic of a light roast. Combine that with techniques better suited to brewing (or pulling shots of) darker roasted, and you have a recipe for a dull, astringent, sour cup.
That being said, a sour espresso shot is always possible regardless of dark the coffee is, so I'd argue it has a lot to do with a cafe owner's willingness to train themselves and their staff to work with lighter roasted coffee.
What are the variables that a roaster can tweak? Temperature, time, and lots of others I assume? Which variable can produce vegetal flavors? I’d never thought much about roasting but now I’m curious!
5 mins or under and it’s scorched, 10 mins or over and it’s baked. I want in the middle.
Too dark and oily and it’s not great. Too light and I miss the bitterness and it tastes weak. I need to stir it a lot or the roast is uneven. I spray water on it at the end to arrest the roasting.
This is something that I still consider to be black magic to me, so this is my best attempt at describing a number of the variables.
Temperature is controlled in two ways: direct heat input (e.g. gas flame heating the outside of the rotating drum) and air flow (moving air through the roasting drum to the exhaust). It's not 1 measurement though: there is bean temperature (measured by a probe stuck into the pile of beans) and air temperature.
As far as time goes, when keeping the end temperature equal, spending more time in the roasting process means that the difference between interior and exterior of the bean are closer in temperature. When you plot air and bean temperature against time, you can derive additional information: how much energy is in your roasting drum and the rate at which the bean temperature is changing.
I'm going to preface this by saying that this is an ongoing field of research. We're still learning about what is happening in a coffee bean at various stages of the roasting process. For example, we're not quite certain exactly what is happening at "first crack" (the first time you can start to hear the beans popping), or why some coffee beans simply don't have as audible of a first crack.
We can attribute the first "rules" established for consistent coffee roasting to Scott Rao, who published some of his observations in a book in the early 2010s. Some of those rules were: (1) ensure that the rate of change of the bean temperature ("rate of rise") is constantly decreasing, and (2) prepare to adjust your roast as you begin first crack to prevent the "crash and flick" (a sharp decrease followed by a sharp increase in the rate of rise). The current thinking is that the release of moisture during first crack causes the temperature to crash, and the removal of that moisture causes the temperature to uncontrollably rise back up again. Not handling this properly often results in undesirable hollow and bready flavors; this is frequently referred to as "baked coffee".
As far as vegetal goes, that is often because of roasters cutting their roasts too short (and perhaps roasting too quickly). In this case, the bean does not get hot enough for sufficient flavor development, so it more or less retains a lot of the undesirable flavors of essentially "raw" coffee.
Note that these are "rules" instead of rules because there are a plethora of edge cases out there.
This is why roasting is really really difficult. And why even some of the best roasters out there end up leaning a lot on blends and their milk drink business.
And sorry, I gotta call out everyone who suggests this: most of your home-roasted coffee is gonna taste like ass lol. I tried home roasting a bit with a fancy setup and with a Fresh Roast. I sure saved a lot of money per pound of coffee, but I always got a fraction of the quality and the flavors were never consistent. But what I gained was insanity and the realization that home-roasting isn't for me.
Thank you for the detailed answer! It makes sense that the vegetal flavors are the raw flavors from the beans themselves. And that temperature is much more complicated than it appears. I also appreciate the Scott Rao pointer, perhaps that will be interesting future reading.
This is mainly what got me into roasting my own coffee. It was becoming a pain to find high quality dark roasts as all of the boutique roasters turned their efforts to light roasts.
I hadn't thought of that as part of why finding good dark roasts has been hard for me. I've been annoyed at light roasts for a long time because I tend to find them acidic to the point that they're not enjoyable. I appreciate the bitterness and toastiness of a good dark roast, but finding good ones has been few and far between in my experience.
It was a journey! My wife got me a roaster for Christmas several years ago, and I had absolutely no idea how to use it. After tons of reading, YouTube, and trial-and-error I eventually got the hang of it. I still use the same roaster she bought me, but I upgraded to a double-walled chamber to make winter roasting more consistent and temperature probes [1] to record the roast process with Artisan [2]. Since collecting data is fun and makes it easier to get consistent results.
I don't roast beans for cold brew anymore since I drink way too much and it was becoming a chore, but I still roast ~8oz every two weeks for pour overs.
If you're interested there are a lot of great resources online. Sweet Maria's [3] has been a constant go-to for knowledge, equipment, and green coffee beans. And of course, YouTube.
Not OP, but if you just want to experiment and you have a cast iron frying pan, there are instructions out there on how to roast beans with a frying pan. I'll leave the instruction search as an exercise for the reader ('cuz I don't know which ones I used), but basically just keep those beans stirred until they start to pop like popcorn, and you're done. CAUTION: this will make a ton of smoke, as in, if you have a way to do this outside then do it. It's what keeps me from making a habit of it.
That said, much like home-brew beer: best beans I've ever had (granted, I'm no snob). Just writing this makes me want to order a bag of unroasted beans off Amazon and give it another whirl.
Or go the easy route and just order what sibling comment recommends. :-)
I’d recommend getting a stove top popcorn popper and a range hood vent :)
Or if you’re like me and live in an apartment, get a window fan blowing out, and be prepared for your apartment to smell amazing/terrible (depending on your perspective) for a few days
i live in Sydney - not far from UNSW :P Campos coffee are phenomenal roaster imo. There's no hype around these light roasts - i would never cold brew them though - i've tried - and it's an incredibly inefficient form of brewing. But light roast itself is a phenomenal thing :)
Agreed, many supposedly good coffee shops in the Seattle area (e.g. Trabant) produce espresso that is way too sour for my taste. (If you want a point of reference, IMO Espresso Vivace does it perfectly.)
> I’m baffled that so many people who sell coffee for a living, think they know a lot about it, and act like coffee snobs, don’t seem to understand what cold brew even is.
Anecdotally, this is something I've experienced in the USA more than in Europe. When I ask a question in store a lot of times I get the feeling that the person answering considers themselves an expert and quickly make claims that I know for a fact are false.
It's like in the USA saying "I don't know, but let me get someone who does" isn't allowed.
> It's like in the USA saying "I don't know, but let me get someone who does" isn't allowed.
-Anecdotally, I believe this sentiment is inversely related to worker protections - it appears that the easier it is to fire you, the less likely you are to volunteer that you are not at the top of your game at all times.
It's less about smugness and more that customer-service people are expected to behave like AI and always have an answer whether it's correct or not. I hope at some point we can drop the facade and "I don't know man, I just run the till. Do you want coffee or not?" becomes an acceptable response.
I can't speak for the US but people absolutely do not act like this in Europe (and Europe has some of the most arrogant self-assured service workers on the planet depending on the country - I won't name names but you can probably guess which country has the most extreme and limiting arrogance around what should or should not be done with coffee).
It's funny cuz Charbux has no problem pouring hot espresso into cold ice milk with caramel and cream on top. I think it's pretty clearly just "baristas" justifying not changing their process, which is fine if a bit lazy and argumentative. Many coffee people are totally interested in finding new ways to do stuff, but they have to have the mental space to do it.
Funny. Exactly that stuff is the only reason I've ever entered a Starbucks.
Venti!
But TBH one can do that with better coffee, caramel sirup, some crushed ice from the fridge, and even spray cream out of a can for much less money, just not 'on-demand' and anywhere/anytime.
Also, too much (spray) cream and caramel in Venti amounts can't be that good for your body.
edit: Also price, the last time I had that it was about 6EUR for Venti, while that even bigger thing would have been just slightly under 10EUR.
Which I think of as insane, considering the not that special ingredients. That was years ago, long before COVID. Didn't go there afterwards, neither in .de, .eur, or the .us.
Don't want to support that franchise chain mindfuckery.
Look, my coffee routine is _perfectly reasonable_.
Fractional gram dosing, multiple pours at different temperatures, timed switch from immersion to percolation, and benchmarking different filter papers has a _measurable impact_ on my coffee.
And I have the data and refractometry measurement data to show it.
... Admittedly the refractometer was expensive, and incorporating it into the routine is complex and not very intuitive.
I can also assure you that I don't look cool while doing it.
I was excited by this in theory, but it's some of the worst cold brew I've had. For shame, Costco is usually pretty good for selecting quality. Then again, my favorite preparation of cold brew is a shot of concentrate straight from the toddy.
You poke fun at it, but great irony is that a lot of knowledgeable coffee people started poking at all the techniques recently and we've learned that almost everything towards the showy complicated side of it are completely not worth thinking about or will have worse results. Osmotic pouring looks neat but will underextract anything that isn't dark. 4:6 is still questionable over most simpler 1-2 pour techniques. That showy thing of raising the kettle up and down a lot also will underextract.
Then it quickly caught on as a novelty, with nitro et al, and when I tell people I drink cold brew warmed I get looks of confusion or turned up noses.
But brew temp and serving temp are orthogonal.