Many coffee enthusiasts encounter a headache-inducing problem during self-study: when searching for a professional term, a bunch of seemingly similar but distinct related terms pop up, making things more confusing the more you look into them. This is especially true in the realm of iced coffee—cold brew, ice drip, ice brewed, cold soak, Dutch coffee, Kyoto coffee... these names frequently appear in various articles, but what exactly are the differences between them? Which one does ice brewed coffee actually refer to? This article will start from the broad concept of cold brew coffee, sort out the various branches of low-temperature extraction coffee one by one, analyze the relationship between ice brewed coffee, cold soak, and ice drip, and explain the essential differences between ice brewed coffee and regular hot coffee poured over ice in terms of production principles and flavor performance, helping readers establish a clear cognitive framework.

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Front Street has noticed that on the path of self-studying coffee, sometimes what troubles people is not those complex techniques or parameters, but rather that whenever searching for a professional term, it always extends into a bunch of related terms that look similar but are different in Chinese semantics, causing confusion.

For example, the iced coffee that dominated the entire summer—cold brew—as soon as you search it on the internet, several "aliases" are bound to pop up: ice drip, ice brewed, cold soak, as well as Dutch coffee, Kyoto coffee... For the moment, it's really hard to tell who is who.

Unlike the production methods we usually see in coffee shops, such as pour-over or Americano, where ice is added to hot coffee, ice brewed coffee is made entirely in a low-temperature environment. In fact, ice brewed coffee is undoubtedly the most ambiguously defined concept. Some people think ice brewed is cold soak, some believe ice brewed should refer to ice drip, and others understand it as the method of soaking coffee grounds in a mixture of ice and water. But hold on, let's start from the broad category of cold brew coffee～

However, since the concept of cold brew tea has long existed in Chinese, in most cases, what people call "cold brew coffee" refers to coffee made by soaking in cold water for a long time, namely cold soak coffee. The common practice is to soak coffee grounds in room-temperature water, put it in the refrigerator for several hours, and then strain out the coffee grounds.

Another common low-temperature extraction is the drip method, which involves controlling the continuously melting ice-water mixture to drip drop by drop through the coffee grounds for a long extraction process—that is ice drip. In many English textbooks, ice drip is usually not called "Ice Drip Coffee," but rather Dutch Coffee, so it is often translated as "Dutch coffee."

Although it is difficult to determine whether the above story is true, what is certain is that the cool drip device designed with multiple layers that everyone sees in coffee shops today was invented by the Japanese, and the ice drip coffee made with it also became popular from within Japan.

Hana Fusa

Later, as well-known Japanese equipment brands such as HARIO, KINTO, and Kalita successively developed the now-familiar cold brew bottles and ice drip pots, this type of low-temperature extracted black coffee spread widely throughout Japan. Until the rise of the third wave of coffee, this cool-looking coffee device began to spread to Europe, and thus was called Kyoto Coffee by Westerners.

In Front Street's view, ice brewed coffee mainly emphasizes the word "brewed," whose original meaning is to make wine, to brew, related to alcohol. In our coffee craft, whether it's ice drip or cold soak, after production, both require sealing in a container for a brewing stage, undergoing several hours or one to two days of aging, allowing the soluble flavor substances to further integrate with water and gradually develop a fermented taste like fine wine.

So whether it's ice drip or cold soak, as long as it's black coffee obtained after a storage and brewing process, Front Street believes it can all be understood as "ice brewed coffee."

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