How Do You Choose Coffee Beans for Cold Brew?
Choose cold brew beans by the flavor you want. For floral and fruity notes, pick light to medium roasts from Africa and Central America. Washed beans from Kenya, Ethiopia, and Panama give bright acidity and a juice-like body; natural processed beans carry more sugar, so they show sweetness, floral aromas, and ripe tropical fruit after a long steep.
Cold brew is a low-temperature immersion method, so acidic compounds fade over time and the coffee aroma is locked in rather than volatilized, giving a fuller, more balanced mouthfeel. The coffee beans process matters too: newer green bean processing methods can add specific flavors that are friendly for beginners choosing beans for cold brew at home.
A while back, Front Street shared an article on how to make cold brew coffee, and after that, a lot of friends started asking in the comments how to choose beans for cold brew. So today, let's analyze and answer this question for everyone.
As a low-temperature immersion extraction method, over time, the types of acidic compounds gradually decrease, so the sour and bitter taste of cold brew is significantly reduced. At the same time, it minimizes the volatilization of coffee aromas, better locking in the fragrance and presenting a fuller, more balanced mouthfeel.
What flavor of cold brew do you want to drink?
"What flavor type of coffee do you usually like?" This is a question that Front Street Coffee baristas often ask customers who come into the shop. Then, based on the customer's preferences, they select suitable beans for brewing, such as floral, fruity, or slightly sour, highly sweet, clean, or with some specific aroma, and so on.
Selecting Beans with Floral and Fruity Notes
This category generally refers to light to medium roast coffee beans. Africa and Central America, which are abundant in floral and fruity coffees, are our primary targets!
Bright fruity acidity: If you want this direction, we can choose washed coffee beans from Kenya, Ethiopia, and Panama. Washed coffee beans have a more elevated acidity, and the bright fruit flavors give the cold brew a full-bodied juice-like feel. For example, Front Street Kenya Asalia,Front StreetEthiopia Yirgacheffe Gedeb Cooperative,Front StreetPanama Boquete Geisha are of this type.
Soft fruity notes: Natural processed coffee beans have higher sugar content than washed ones, so they have obvious sweetness, overflowing floral aromas, and mature tropical fruit flavors. After long cold brewing, the floral and fruity notes complement each other, and the unique fermented feel of natural processing is amplified. For example, Front Street Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry, Front Street Ethiopia Gesha Village Red Label, Front Street Panama Elida Typica, etc.
Selecting Beans with Specific Flavors
Nowadays, in addition to traditional processing methods, to add more rich aromas to coffee, producing regions have introduced many novel green bean processing methods. These processing techniques can make coffee beans emit certain very specific flavors, which is relatively friendly for beginners. If cold brew uses coffee beans processed this way, over time, it will allow these aromas to develop into a cup of iced coffee with both a full mouthfeel and aroma. These coffee beans are distributed across a wide range of regions, so Front Street will list a few of the more famous ones!
Recommended cold brew coffee beans with obvious fruity aromas include:Front StreetEthiopia Dorothy (White Peach Oolong),Front StreetCosta Rica Mirazu Estate Strawberry Candy Geisha Blend (Strawberry, Dried Fruit),Front StreetCosta Rica Giant Stone Estate Blueberry (Blueberry Gummy)
Ones with obvious floral aromas include: Front Street Colombia Rose Valley (Rose, Liqueur Chocolate), Front Street Colombia Paradise Estate Sakura (Chamomile)
Ones with a slight tipsy aroma include: Front Street Honduras Sherry (Whiskey Aroma), Front Street Honduras Lychee Orchid (Brandy Aroma)
Selecting Medium-Dark Roasted Beans
For those who don't want to drink something sour and sweet, Front Street recommends using medium-dark or dark roasted beans. Through long high-temperature roasting, the beans gradually lose their acidity, resulting in a coffee rich in caramel, spice, and chocolate flavors.
Medium-dark roast: Medium-dark roasted beans don't completely eliminate acidity, retaining a trace of it to make the overall mouthfeel of the cold brew more balanced. When made into cold brew, the performance will be mainly chocolate flavors, with the soft acidity not being out of place. For example, Front Street Brazil Queen Estate, Front Street Guatemala Antigua Floral God, Front Street Papua New Guinea Bird of Paradise, Front Street Yunnan · Front Street 2013
Dark roast: If you don't want any acidity at all and just want to enjoy the rich, silky smoothness brought by spices and chocolate, then the dark roasted Front Street Indonesia PWN Golden Mandheling will be a great choice for you!
Add Appropriately for a Finishing Touch
After discussing bean selection, let's share a little trick: when making cold brew, add a small proportion of osmanthus or jasmine flowers to give the cold brew a touch of elegant floral fragrance~
Although there are many coffee beans to choose from for cold brew, because it is slowly extracted under cold water, compared to hot pour-over, its flavor is ultimately relatively one-dimensional. Clever friends then thought of adding other auxiliary ingredients to provide some unique aromas to the coffee, such as dried petals, which are favored by many ladies.
Considering that cold brew has fewer intervention factors and is immersed in a static environment throughout the process, if you want the fragrant scent to enter the coffee and give it a touch of freshness, it's best to choose types with obvious floral aromas for production, such as osmanthus, jasmine, and rose. These three dried flowers are not only easy to come across in daily life, but also have higher compatibility with coffee flavors. However, although these dried flowers are full of aroma, their taste is relatively thin, so it's best to use medium-light roasted coffee beans with floral and fruity flavor profiles to brew together, so that the two can complement each other.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
