Aside from being absolutely everywhere right now, cold brew coffee is a method of producing rich, delicious coffee over time. Rather than brewing coffee with boiling water, the cold brew method allows you to gradually filter coffee through without burning or diluting the beans. Essentially, the process involves brewing coffee with room temperature or cold water over a 12-24 hour period. Because of the colder base water, you end up with a far smoother and less acidic final result. If you are wondering how to make cold brew coffee, we caught up with the Ben Irvine, trade marketing manager for Manly Vale-based roastery Seven Miles.

While coffee, like most food and beverage, is a matter of personal preference, you have to think it takes more than just a couple of spoonfuls of the old Blend 43 to make cold brew coffee shine. A typical espresso blend will get the job done, particularly if you plan on adding milk to the final product, however, a light espresso roast will generally work better for unmixed drinking.

A highly important aspect of the final flavour, roast is one aspect you need to consider deeply. “I recommend a light or medium roast for cold brew,” Irvine says. “Darker roasts, particularly those with visible oils on the bean will have a fairly one-dimensional smoky roast taste in the finished product.”

According to the Seven Miles coffee expert, ‘natural process’ coffees work particularly well with cold brewing. “The extra sweetness and deep fruity flavours of these coffees work much better than more delicate ‘washed’ coffees. A particular favourite are Ethiopian natural process coffees (like this one) or blends that are made up of natural process coffees (like our Wilde blend)”

Finally, if you are wondering how to make cold brew coffee that will actually taste good, have a think about the grind. “A coarse grind (Plunger / French Press) will produce the best results.,” Irvine says. “If grinding coffee at home is not an option, then I would avoid the pre-ground coffees in the supermarket. These are usually ground too fine, designed for either espresso or drip filter. Most local roasters and many local cafes will grind to order to suit cold brew.”

If you want to learn how to make cold brew coffee at home, the first step is to get your equipment and ingredients together. Most will be easy to find, but they will also be highly dependent on the method you use to make your cold brew. If you are using a Toddy, the equipment supplied will be sufficient, provided you have enough filters to see you through.

While the Toddy is perhaps the easiest method for how to make cold brew coffee at home, we’ve gone with an absolute bare essentials recipe. Provided you have coffee, water and a saucepan, you’ll be set to get this cold brew coffee recipe underway. Here is how to make cold brew coffee at home without a system;

If you’ve heard of cold brew coffee chances are you also heard of cold drop coffee. While hey might appear to be exactly the same thing, they most certainly aren’t Cold drip coffee regularly refers to coffee brewed using those wild glass towers you see at some cafes. These contraptions allow cold water to drip through the coffee grounds over a number of hours into a glass vessel beneath. They can expensive set-ups to procure, particularly when compared to the simple and affordable method for how to make cold brew coffee. Sure, the Toddy might not be the kind of instrument you’d want to display prominently, but it gets the job done.

Now you’ve figured out how to make cold brew coffee, you’re on to your next big question; how do you serve it? Well, much like the cold brew coffee recipe, it’s super easy. Here are three ways to serve cold brew coffee;

While most cold brew coffee recipes are essentially set and forget systems, you can still stuff it up. There are a number of common errors people succumb to when making the drink. Here are the common cold brew coffee mistakes you should avoid;