Nearly 500 years of tradition makes for a great tasting coffee

If you come to the Coffee Company regularly, you might well have seen a strange sort of contraption sitting off to the right of the pastry case. If you don’t know it, it seems a bit like something one might expect to find ensconced in some sort of super secret sci-fi lab. It’s a kind of crazy-looking contraption, an array of glass beakers and pipes all set into a wooden frame that’s about four and a half feet high. In fact, it’s what we use to make our Kyoto Cold Brew.

Kyoto Cold Brew is a method that dates to the early years of coffee making outside of its Ethiopian homeland. While the name would understandably lead to the conclusion that it was created in Japan, it was likely developed by 17th-century Dutch sailors! They needed a way to prepare coffee on months-long voyages. As the most common creation story goes, someone figured out that pouring cold water slowly over ground coffee beans would do the trick.

The Kyoto brewer comes with three sections: a bigger water chamber up at the top, a tube that holds coffee grounds and a filter in the middle, and last but not least, the carafe at the base where the finished coffee is collected. The brew is indeed made using cold water that’s allowed to fall, one drip at a time, over ground coffee. The low temperature and super slow extraction mean that there’s almost no oxidation of the coffee during the brewing, making for a super smooth cup that enhances a coffee’s natural fruit, takes out a lot of the bean’s bitterness, and leaves in lots of lovely caramelly notes. I drink it straight as it is, but you can add milks, syrups, and sweeteners as you do to any coffee!

Place an order for pick-up at the Coffee Company.

P.S. The Coffee Company’s decaf done in the Kyoto Cold Brew is remarkably tasty, too!

To keep up with the buzz on all of the latest happenings in the Zingerman’s Community, follow us on social media: @zingermanscommunity on Instagram and Facebook, and @zingermans on X (formerly Twitter).

A unique process makes for a marvelously magical flavor!

If you’re looking for a good way to wake up and fight the summer heat, pick up a bottle or six of this super tasty, very special Cold Brew from the Coffee Company. More and more people have told me they keep it regularly stocked in their fridge to pop open for their morning drive or to wake up and cool down on a hot afternoon. Steve Mangigian, Managing Partner at the Coffee Company, spent years working to perfect this recipe. It’s allowed us to do a cold brew of our coffee, one that doesn’t need refrigeration while it’s sealed in the bottle.

Matthew Bodary, who’s worked in the ZCoB for 11 years now (and served as one of our first Staff Partners) shares:

I have seen over the last few years that some switch to cold brew and never look back! We have folks who in the dead of winter and an inch of ice coating everything still come in and get a large cold brew or nitro cold brew. For some, it’s about the big caffeine hit (I count myself among the guilty on this point) but for others, it is about the different taste you get through the cold brewing process—overall smoother, fewer natural acids (which some perceive as “sourness”) and less bitterness. For those sensitive to the sharper, more intense flavors in coffee, cold brew, especially with a bit of milk, can be a more rounded, smoother experience. 

All of Steve’s hard work has paid off in the form of a great product. He says:

Many companies make cold brew to get rid of beans that they can’t use to brew hot. We have been making it for the entire history of the company and so have always used only our high-quality single origins as the basis for our brew. I think when we say, “You really can taste the difference,” it’s very true here. Many simply sell cold coffee that’s been brewed and call it “cold brew” but naturally it has not gone through that long steeping process which is what hooks people.

What makes the Coffee Company’s taste so good? For starters, using better beans. A lot of packaged cold brew work is done to use up subpar offerings that might not make it on their own. Steve selects with the idea of making the cold brew one of the tastiest things we offer. And using a higher proportion of coffee to water. Many cold brews can be a bit pallid—the Coffee Company’s is much bolder, ready to be poured (if you want) over ice or have cream and sugar added, without ever losing its identity. More than a few have started concocting cocktails using the cold brew as the base! Since it’s shelf-stable, there’s no reason not to stock up a lot of it! Why run the risk of running out right? It could just be one of those small things that takes your quality of life to the next level!

You can get the Cold Brew at the Coffee Company, Deli, Bakeshop, and Roadhouse! We’re happy to ship you some too!

Want more from Ari?

Sign up for Ari’s Top 5 e-newsletter and look forward to his weekly curated email—a roundup of 5 Zing things Ari is excited about this week—stuff you might not have heard of!