Bubble coffee, cold brew and an iced latte from Industry Beans
cold coffee
Keep it
cool Cold coffee options have changed the face of the industry, giving flat whites a run for their money. By Annabelle Cloros.
C
old brew, cold drip and nitro are fast becoming the beverage of choice for coffee drinkers. No longer restricted to the warmer months, coffee connoisseurs are enjoying iced varieties all year round. There’s no doubt cold coffee options have gained momentum across the US, and Australia has followed suit. In 2018, you would be hard pressed to come across a café that doesn’t offer an iced latte at the bare minimum, with a large number extending their offering to cold brew and cold drip.
RISING IN THE POPULARITY STAKES The increased presence of cold coffee options can be filtered down to two elements — curiosity and education. “Generally, I think people are very curious to try new things and people are open to trying other coffee beverages that have the richness and flavour of coffee without being laden with milk,” says Hazel de los Reyes, owner of Coffee Alchemy. “Cold brews and drip options without a lot of milk offer a refreshing, lighter coffee beverage.” Cam Stephens from Mecca Coffee agrees, and believes consumer education and awareness has collectively risen. “I think education across the board has increased quite a bit,” he says. “The diversity of good-quality cold coffees has started to let people know it’s a worthwhile process.” 16 Hospitality April 2018
EARLY ADOPTERS Melbourne roasters Industry Beans took cues from the movement in the US and were one of the first in Australia to add cold brew to their offering. “It just started to get going and we were brewing it in a homemade device in our first café,” says co-owner Trevor Simmons. “We started off with cold brew and slow cold immersion, and we’ve got cold brew on keg now. The US is really good at the filter market and Australia has always had a strong espresso culture, so I think the two together is a really nice combination.” Coffee Alchemy offers a range of cold coffee options including cold drip, cold brew with milk and a sparkler — a carbonated brewed coffee served cold over ice in a beer glass. They’ve also recently experimented with tonic and coffee, discovering the bitterness of both liquids cancel each other out. “We have introduced cold options over the years,” says de los Reyes. “We tend to experiment first and determine if it’s something we would drink ourselves — we don’t introduce it for the sake of being novel. Hot batch brew over ice is really nice and we all took it up as our favourite chilled coffee drink. Ice batch brew is the new thing that’s become popular among our regulars.” Mecca introduced nitro coffee three years ago, and it has become a beverage the company is widely known for. “We launched nitro mid2015 and were inspired by some of the roasters in the US who were