Does a chilled cup change how coffee tastes?

Serving espresso or pour-over in a chilled cup does not ruin the coffee. The cold vessel lowers the drink's temperature faster, and that lower temperature can make floral and fruity aromas easier to perceive while keeping the coffee from burning the mouth, which is why some professionals now skip preheating in summer.

The idea echoes Sasa Sestic's Paragon ice sphere, which cools coffee right after extraction to lock in aroma. In tests, how coffee is made matters less than the temperature difference between liquid and cup, so results vary between espresso and pour-over depending on how quickly each one cools.

Conventional wisdom holds that preheating a coffee cup slows the rate at which coffee cools, helping maintain the ideal drinking temperature. However, as understanding of the relationship between temperature and flavor perception deepens, more and more coffee professionals have begun serving coffee in room-temperature or even refrigerated vessels—especially in summer, since this avoids burning the mouth while allowing the layers of flavor to be captured more clearly. It was on this basis that Project Origin founder Sasa Sestic developed the Paragon ice sphere, which locks in aroma through instant cooling. So, if the cup receiving the coffee is chilled, could it produce a similar effect? Front Street Coffee put this to the test, using chilled vessels to make espresso and pour-over coffee respectively, to explore the actual impact of low-temperature vessels on flavor presentation.

These steps can raise the temperature of the vessel, thereby reducing the drop in coffee temperature caused by the temperature difference, so that the coffee does not cool too quickly.

However, ever since people realized that temperature has a significant impact on coffee tasting, the practice of abandoning preheated vessels in favor of room-temperature cups has become increasingly common. Especially in summer, doing so not only keeps guests from being burned, but also allows the layers of coffee flavor to be captured more clearly.

It is precisely on this principle that Mr. Sasa Sestic, founder of Project Origin, developed the Paragon ice sphere for cooling coffee. This ice sphere cools the coffee the instant extraction is complete, and coffee at a low temperature makes its aroma easier for people to perceive. This led some netizens to wonder: if the cup receiving the coffee is placed in the refrigerator to chill, could a low-temperature vessel also bring about a similar effect?

Front Street Coffee was curious about this too, so we might as well test it ourselves! Serve coffee in a chilled cup and see whether a similar effect can be produced.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.