With this Primula cold brew coffee maker bundle you can, well, brew your own cold brew. You can make it in the carafe or the travel mug thing — pretty nifty considering how long it takes to brew. But we may be getting ahead of ourselves.
Cold brew come out of nowhere. In 2014 the phrase was largely unknown. In 2017 it’s ubiquitous. In 2019 we’ll probably be living in a magical kingdom underneath a sea of cold brew.
What is cold brew? Why is it so popular? And why should you consider brewing your own with this Primula bundle?
What is cold brew? It’s coffee brewed with cold water. Doy. It started in the South (specifically New Orleans), where the climate can get a tad hot. Unlike traditional iced coffee, which is brewed hot and then cooled down, cold brew is brewed in cold water (actually room-temperature water) over 24 hours. There’s not much more to it that that.
Why is it so popular? Put simply: It’s less bitter. Hot water brings out the bitterness in coffee beans, so brewing it cold avoids this bitterness. Milk and sugar also reduce (or mask) the bitterness of traditional coffee, which means you need less or none of these unhealthy accoutrements in cold brew. And let’s not discount the effect of trendiness — cold brew has become de rigueur in coffee snob circles. We’re pretty sure that’s what de reigueur means, at least.
Why should you consider brewing your own? Because buying cold brew at either the store or coffee shop is freaking expensive. Those cute little short bottles of Stumptown will set you back about 1/4 the price of this coffee maker bundle. So if you plan to drink cold brew 5 times in the rest of your life, you’ll save money. Also, it’s kinda satisfying to brew in the same way sun tea can be. The only drawback is that you need to plan 24 hours ahead — no minor issue for many of us.
Given all this, the biggest question we have is why cold brew took so long to catch on. There’s no fancy technology involved. It tastes better. It’s healthier (if you put less milk and sugar in). Why did it take hundreds of years of coffee drinking to stumble onto it?
So what happens if you heat up cold brew? Does it also taste better? Wait, don’t tell anybody about that idea. It could be our ticket out of this deal-a-day popsicle stand.
