The Chemistry of Cold-Brew Coffee is So Hot Right Now

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The chemistry of cold-brew coffee is so hot right now:

Cold-brew coffee is so hot right now, and not just with hipster consumers. Scientists at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have been taking a deeper look at the underlying chemistry to better understand how the cold-brew method alters coffee's chemical characteristics, with an eye toward pinpointing the best way to cold brew the perfect cup. They had originally planned to present their results last month at the American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia, but the COVID-19 pandemic shut that down. So instead, they presented the information in a virtual poster session.

[...] "It turned out that there is a lot of research on coffee but not much research on cold-brew coffee," said Rao. That's partly because the biggest coffee-brewing countries (Italy, Turkey, Brazil, Colombia, for example) are all devoted to hot-brew coffee, like espresso. The cold-brew trend is mostly centered in North America.

"There are a lot of studies on espresso," said Rao. "We thought it would be a good idea to put some information out there for consumers and enthusiasts like me who want to make their own cold-brew coffee."

In one paper, published in 2018, Rao and Fuller measured levels of acidity and antioxidants in batches of cold- and hot-brew coffee. But those experiments only used lightly roasted coffee beans. The degree of roasting (temperature) makes a significant difference when it comes to hot-brew coffee. Might the same be true for cold-brew coffee? To find out, the pair teamed up with one of their undergraduate students, Meghan Grim, to explore the extraction yields of light-, medium-, and dark-roast coffee beans during the cold-brew process.

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