What Are The Best Coffee Beans For Cold Brew?
Cold brew coffee has become increasingly popular and a personal favorite for a majority of people. Why wouldn't it? A chilled drink on a hot summer day is something we all long for.
However, nothing makes a good coffee, cold or hot, unless the quality of the coffee beans is spectacular. We can't go around spending for a cup of coffee from the local Starbucks every single day.
So, if you too want to start brewing your own coffee at home but are unsure which coffee beans to use, you've reached the right page as we are going to look at some top choices.
What is Cold Brewed Coffee?
In simple terms, cold brewed coffee is coffee that is brewed either at room temperature or in cold water for a period of 12 to 24 hours, whatever your recipe calls for.
Because it is brewed with cold water, the taste is mellower than usual and it tastes far more rounded out. You don't get that acidity that you will find in hot or iced coffee.
However, it is important to note that cold brewed coffee and iced coffee are very different from each other. Cold brew does not ever get exposed to heat.
While on the other hand, iced coffee is made by using the hot brew method and then eventually cooled down and poured over ice cubes.
How to Choose the Best Beans for Cold Brew?
When it comes to choosing beans for your cold brew, it entirely depends on your personal preference. We would highly recommend that you try out multiple coffee beans to zero in on one. However, do not assume that your preference of coffee beans for hot coffee will be the same as for the cold brew.
When it comes to choosing between light roasts or dark roasts, even experts are quite divided on this subject. People tend to opt for light or medium roasts because these tend to be more acidic in nature, and the process of cold brewing ends up eliminating the acidity of these beans.
On the other hand, cold brewing darker roast of beans tend to offer a far richer and darker taste of coffee. It vaguely resembles the flavors of dark chocolate and nuts and has a very earthy flavor to it.
However, do note that if you do opt for lighter roasts of coffee beans, it requires a longer time for extraction as the cellular structure of these beans are damaged lesser with the roasting process.
5 Best Coffee Beans For Cold Brew To Consider
Now that you have a better idea about what cold brew is and what to look for when you are buying the coffee beans, we will now look at five of the best coffee grounds on the market right now that makes amazing cold brewed coffees.
If you are looking for high-quality beans from farms in Guatemala and Ethiopia, with a milky chocolate and subtle underlying notes of cherry taste profile.
Then, the Chosen Bean Coffee Ground is an excellent choice.
This brand will offer you with the finest Arabica coffee beans. They select their bean from more than 14 different kinds of variants, which include the taste, flavor, and the size.
The coffee beans go through an intense roast process. Each of their roasts gets crafted into small batches and then they get hand roasted by the farms master roaster who keeps a very close eye on the beans to ensure that you end up getting a smoother finish and absolutely none of them get burnt.
In terms of the coffee's storage and packaging, the company ensures that their beans are stored in an attractive bag that is double layered for better insulation with a one-way degassing valve so that it retains all the freshness of it till it reaches you.
The company has also provided a tin tie to allow better storage once the package is opened.
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The Stone Street Dark Roast Coffee is available either as a whole bean or pre-ground in one pound or a two pound packets.
The coffee beans are a 100% Arabica that is a single origin Colombian Supremo beans which are considered to be among the best ones in the world.
These are crafted very artfully to create a delicious cold brew for coffee lovers that are on a lookout for a well-balanced taste profile from specialty grade beans. These dark roasts are ideal not just for cold brewing but also for cold pressing.
In terms of its flavor profile, it is significantly less acidic than hot coffees. It is extremely smooth, rich with a slightly sweet underlying taste and a bold coffee flavor.
The company uses a large foil large bag which has a three-layer natural Kraft along with a one-way de-gassing valve in order to retain the coffee's freshness and the aroma.
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Created in their very own Cold Brew Lab, an artisan coffee roaster based in New York City, this coffee has an amazing and unique flavor.
This brand is well known for their proprietary blend of dark and medium roast of coffee beans which creates a unique level of roast perfect for cold brewed coffees.
This is ideal for slow-brewing too and will offer you a smoother, full-bodied and well-rounded coffee that has very low acidity.
The biggest upside to this coffee is that it is completely organic, is from farms that are completely free from all pesticides and is completely approved by the USDA to ensure the high quality of the product. This is a specialty grade 100% Arabica Colombian Supremo Coffee.
The brand offers you multiple choices in terms of the coffee, that is you can either opt for the pre-ground coffee or whole bean coffee beans in a one pound packets. Once brewed, this coffee will stay fresh for up to seven days if kept in the refrigerator.
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While ground coffee is something most people opt for, there are some who prefer pouches of ground coffee as it offers convenience.
The Wild Foods Coffee is available either in a four pouch pack or a ten pouch pack. One pouch can offer you up to 24 ounces of cold coffee.
The coffee beans are full of aroma as they are freshly roasted and have all of their natural oils still intact.
The company only grinds the coffee when they receive the order from the user and pack it in a filter pouch that is custom made. The pouch is then sealed with their one of a kind one-way Kraft valve coffee bags before they get labeled and shipped off.
The coffee is a 100% organic and is a blend of medium and dark roasted coffees that are sourced from Indonesia, Central America and Sumatra.
It has an extremely bold taste yet very smooth, rich with subtle notes of dark chocolate and an earthy undertone.
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As intense as it sounds, the coffee tastes equally intense. This coffee is one of the highly rated coffees and even featured on BuzzFeed for how strong it is.
The Death Wish Coffee comes in one pound, two pound and a five pound bags and they come in a whole bean form.
This coffee is called the World's strongest coffee as it has double the caffeine power than your regular coffee. All of their coffee beans are sourced from USDA certified organic farms and is Kosher too.
Each of their beans is selected very carefully and they are roasted only by experts so that you end up with a bold and a smooth brew that will jog all your senses.
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Conclusion
These are the top rated coffee beans on the market right now. Each of them is unique in the own manner. However, if we had to choose one amongst them, our pick would be the Cold Brew Lab Dark Roast Organic Coffee.
For starters, this coffee is completely organic and sourced only from Colombia. It is a beautiful blend of medium to a dark roast of coffee which offers us with bold flavors yet an underlying sweet taste, which is what most of us are looking in our coffee.
