What Is White Coffee? Creative Cold Brew with Fruit, Plum, Milk and Coconut Water

Cold brew is usually served black to show the clean flavor of low-temperature extraction, but home brewing leaves room for variation. Five additions work well: fruit, dried flowers, preserved plums, milk, and coconut water. Each one changes the cup's personality, from bright and fruity to salty-sour and sweet.

Fruit cold brew suits sun-dried Geisha, washed Fruit Ding Ding, Strawberry Candy, Sidra, and Kenyan Cherry Tomato, paired with grapes, white peaches, lychees, strawberries, cherries, or sweet oranges that hold up to long soaking. Osmanthus, jasmine, and rose match light-to-medium roasts with floral notes. Preserved plums and dried tangerine peel add a salty-sour aroma with a sweet aftertaste, and coconut water mixed 1:1 with cold brew makes a refreshing drink.

Cold brew coffee is usually recommended to be enjoyed black, to appreciate the pure flavor after low-temperature extraction, but when making it at home, it actually offers plenty of creative space. Front Street Coffee has put together five hidden ways to drink it today: adding fruit, dried flowers, preserved plums, milk, or coconut water—each one gives cold brew a completely different personality. Beans suitable for fruit cold brew include sun-dried Geisha, washed Fruit Ding Ding, Strawberry Candy, Sidra, Kenyan Cherry Tomato, and more; when choosing fruit, pay attention to whether it can withstand long soaking and whether the aroma is compatible—Kyoho grapes, white peaches, lychees, strawberries, cherries, and sweet oranges are all good choices. As for dried flowers, osmanthus, jasmine, and rose pair best with light-to-medium roast beans with floral and fruity notes. Preserved plums and nine-process dried tangerine peel can bring a complex aroma of salty-sour with a sweet aftertaste. Milk cold brew comes in two ways: direct soaking and mixing with fresh milk. Mix coconut water and cold brew at 1:1 for a refreshing, heat-relieving drink.

Cold brew in coffee shops is usually recommended to be drunk straight, as this best captures the coffee's own charm and the unique mouthfeel imparted by low-temperature extraction. However, as one of the most popular coffees to make at home, cold brew has evolved to include quite a few novel ways to enjoy it, and each change of ingredient brings a completely different flavor.

Today, Front Street is going to sort through several hidden ways to drink cold brew and see which one suits your taste.

1. Add fruit

Coffee itself often carries "fruity notes," and many fruits are also suitable for low-temperature soaking, so adding fruit to cold brew is quite common.

In the flavor wheel, fruit descriptors make up a large proportion. Broad categories include citrus, berries, dried fruit, and more, while specific ones include blueberries, strawberries, cherries, grapefruit, oranges, apples, peaches, pears, pineapple, and other highly distinctive types.

So there is a wide choice of coffee beans suitable for making fruit cold brew, such as Front Street. Sun-Dried Geisha with tropical fruit notes, Front Street. Washed Fruit Ding Ding leaning toward citrus, Front Street. Strawberry Candy with prominent raisin sweetness, Front Street. Sidra with its own passion fruit-like sweet acidity, Front Street. Kenyan Cherry Tomato with a flavor like smoked plum juice... These specialty single origins are not only great for cold brew, but can also create entirely new combinations with all kinds of fruit.

Beyond choosing the right coffee beans, Front Street believes the fruit pairing is equally key. When choosing fruit, first consider whether it can withstand long soaking (ideally overnight), and second, whether the fruit can release a harmonious aroma after being steeped in coffee. Based on Front Street's experience, if you want fruit cold brew to be both refreshing and not overpowering, it is best to choose varieties that are lightly sweet, juicy, and aromatic, such as Kyoho grapes, white peaches, lychees, as well as in-season strawberries, cherries, and sweet oranges. For more detailed pairing tips, you can revisit our article from last year, "What Fruit Makes the Best Cold Brew Coffee?"

2. Add dried flowers

Although there are plenty of coffee beans to choose from for cold brew, the slow cold-water extraction method ultimately makes its flavor a bit simpler than hot pour-over, so experienced enthusiasts add other ingredients to bring in unique aromas, such as dried flower petals, which are especially favored by women.

Considering that cold brew has few adjustable steps and is in a static soak throughout, if you want fragrant notes to blend into the coffee and bring a touch of freshness, it is best to choose varieties with obvious floral fragrance that are easy to extract.

For example, osmanthus, jasmine, and rose—these three flowers are easy to obtain in daily life and are highly compatible with coffee flavor. However, although these dried flowers are full of aroma, their taste is rather thin, so it is best to steep them together with light-to-medium roast coffee beans whose flavor profile points toward floral and fruity notes, so the two can complement each other. For specific steps, refer to Front Street's article published last autumn, "The Most Popular Specialty Coffee in Autumn, Easy to Make at a Glance!"

3. Add preserved plums

As a traditional Chinese snack, preserved plums taste salty, sour, and refreshing. Holding one in your mouth, you can feel a rich fruity aroma and a sweet aftertaste. They can not only be used to make creative dishes, but also various specialty drinks or popular cold beverages. Front Street once put 5 preserved plums into a pot of Sun-Dried Butterfly cold brew. After soaking overnight, the coffee's original citrus acidity and tea-like body unexpectedly extended into a complex aroma reminiscent of perilla, raspberry, and cherry, making the flavor especially unique.

Besides preserved plums, I believe you can find quite a few other dried fruits in the snacks around you. Why not use your imagination and try combining them with coffee to see whether the result is a pleasant surprise or an accident.

For example, every time Front Street buys herbal tea, the shop owner includes a packet of nine-process dried tangerine peel. Every time you take the first bite, it is so salty it makes you shiver, then the tip of your tongue picks up the sweet-and-sour taste of the preserved fruit, and soon your whole mouth is filled with tangerine peel aroma, both promoting saliva and soothing the throat. When Front Street added it to a pot of Finca El Diviso·Big Belly Button cold brew, it unexpectedly presented yet another flavor, with blackcurrant juice interwoven with citrus and candied fruit notes, very layered.

4. Pair with milk

When it comes to milk cold brew, there are usually two methods. The first is to replace water with milk and directly soak the coffee grounds "article review," then filter out the residue. The iced coffee obtained this way is sweet and mellow on the palate, with a viscous texture, combining the smoothness of milk with the fresh aroma of the beans. Note that milk is rich in protein and milk fat, which easily masks the coffee flavor, so it is more suitable to make with beans roasted at medium or above, giving a fuller mouthfeel.

The other is to make cold brew first and then mix in fresh milk to drink, which can also be understood as a cold brew latte. The addition of fresh milk not only softens the impurity sensation that coffee grounds can bring during low-temperature extraction, but also adds a touch of smoothness and silkiness to the cold brew, making the coffee easier to drink.

5. Add coconut water

Coconut water is rich in various amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. It tastes lightly sweet with a slight saltiness, quenches thirst, and relieves heat. Its color is transparent and clear, and it has always been a perfect match for iced coffee—cold brew is no exception.

Front Street once tried mixing 100 ml of iced coconut water with 100 ml of Strawberry Candy cold brew (coffee-to-water ratio 1:10) at a 1:1 ratio to make a cup of coconut-aroma cold brew coffee. Every sip had both the sweet-and-sour taste of raisins and strawberry gummies and the fresh fragrance of coconut, very pleasant.

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