Coffee Toddy Cold Brew

Cold brew made with the immersion method: coarse grounds steeped in cool water for 12 to 16 hours, then filtered. Smooth and rounded, with the chocolate, caramel and nutty notes cold brew often shows, and little of the sharpness of hot coffee.

Origin & Story

Cold brew has two histories. One begins in Japan, where the Dutch brought coffee and the slow cold-drip method, later called Kyoto-style, took root. The other begins in New Orleans, where people have long sipped coffee brewed cold with chicory in tall glasses over ice, decades before the current iced coffee craze.

The modern home method owes a lot to a chemical engineer. The story goes that in 1964 Todd Simpson, a Cornell graduate, tasted a cup made from a cold-brewed concentrate in Peru, wondered whether heat was needed at all, and began experimenting with time instead. He went on to patent the Toddy system, a simple gravity-fed brewer, which helped make immersion cold brew a household method.

The method takes almost no work. Coarse coffee and cool water sit together for 12 to 24 hours, and then the grounds are filtered out. Cold water extracts slowly, and it extracts different things than hot water does. Cold brew ends up with about the same overall acidity as hot coffee, though with less of the acid that tastes sharp, so it tastes smooth and sweet.

Strength is easy to adjust. This recipe is made at drinking strength, 18 g of coffee to 300 g of water, steeped for 12 to 16 hours. Many people brew a concentrate instead, with much more coffee in the same water, and dilute it at serving. Cold brew keeps in the refrigerator for several days.

Chocolate and caramel notes come through best when the coffee is a medium to dark roast. Serve it over ice, with or without milk.

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