Happy Summer Solstice! We’re celebrating with the launch of our 2021 Ethereal Summer Blend (featuring our limited-release Colombian Natural “La Estrella” this year), and wanted to devote this first “Summer Series” edition to re-visiting the coffee drink that is almost synonymous with summer: Cold Brew!
Want to know our secret for great Cold Brew every time? Get these basics right:
(1) Coffee - we’ve found that the best Cold Brew is actually made from beans that have been allowed to rest a few days before Cold Brewing (as the fast de-gassing of freshly roasted beans seems interfere with the extraction). In fact, Cold Brew is a great method to use some of your “older” Ethos beans!
(2) Water - its impact on flavor simply can’t be emphasized enough! Bad quality water (i.e. tap water that tastes like chlorine or is too hard/soft) can ruin the taste of even the best beans… remember the final brew is over 90% water!
(3) Filter - using a good cold brew paper filter has a big impact on the clarity and quality of flavors. We’ve also found re-usable cloth filters perform well when you use a set of two and clean them throughly after each batch. And while you can make Cold Brew without a paper or cloth filter, the flavor difference is so pronounced, that we must recommend you use one! (it filters out the oils, diterpenes, and some of the fines from your brew, for a much cleaner taste).
(4) Grind - coarsely ground coffee will always work best for the prolonged cold brew extraction times. While you may be tempted to use a finer grind to “accelerate” the process, it may only result in a more acidic, unbalanced brew. When cold brewing, good things do take time! (about 20-22 hours to be precise)
(5) Ratio - this one is listed last because there may not be a single “ideal ratio” - it all depends on how strong you’d like your brew, or if you’ll be adding more/less ice, milks, etc. We would recommend you start with a 1:8 (i.e. one ounce of coffee for every 8 ounces of water… which happens to be the ratio we use for our Cold Brew for Saturday markets!), and adjust if needed. This concentrate will hold well to dilution with ice, milks, and sweeteners.
Happy Cold Brewing, and happy adventures this Summer!
Jolian & Lisbeth
P.S. We just got more bracelets from Guatemala (some beautiful new designs for your collections!)… and a couple more surprises we’ll be sending with your large orders (i.e. over 3 lbs) all this Summer! We’ll post details on our IG stories this week 😉
