Home Made Cold Brew Aspirations

For several years now, I've been paying hefty prices for cold brewed coffee wherever I've stumbled upon it. But yesterday I finally made a long awaited dream a reality: I set up my very first self-constucted cold brew contraption. Want to know how?

Wait, first I need to digress a bit.  My first introduction to cold brewed iced coffee was the lovely 12th Ave Stumptown on Capitol Hill, a corridor-like space with flexible use coffee tables that serve as footrests and additional seating. It was the start of summer of 2010. [Read: BEFORE Stumptown sold out]. Also, we were amidst the World Cup. There were crowds spilling onto the sidewalk, mid-day, of just about every pub cafe & diner in town that had in its possession even a small flat screen. And it was unusually hot. According to my then boyfriend and Pacific Northwest poster child Andrew Oberhardt,  who happens to be a rockclimber, kayaker, and 8 year long Seattlite, this was very rare and way too hot for the norm.  Not to mention too hot for a girl spoiled by the constant cool breezes of sunny & dry Southern California. 

Good weather San Diego does has, and even some artisan coffee. But gourmet artisan coffee brewed right is a seldom treat. So I eagerly elbowed my way into Stumptown, past the human street spillage from the French cafe one door over and ordered an iced coffee. Shocked when I was told that my total is $3.50, I began to wonder what other consumables I'd find grossly inflated in the city of my Pacific Northwest dreams. 

Then, as I wiped sweat from my forehead, I took my first sip. And I was changed. Forever. No seriously, that's not even overly dramatizing things. I realize how this must come across, and maybe if I were a better writer I could better paint the picture, but it's true. Once that ice-like aftertaste (I was recently pleased to learn from a coffee geek blog that the cool after-gulp feeling from cold brewed coffee actually comes from a chemical) hit my throat and mouth, I was addicted. It was an inspirational caffeine moment. The clean, crisp texture. The acidless taste. I came back several times to Stumptown for more cold brewed crack, but apparently that day was a trial run. They didn't make the stuff regularly.  At that time they had begun, apparently, to get the ball rolling on succumbing to the corporate takeover. 

And then the heat wave was over. Just like that. Seattle returned to its familiar temperatures, still sunnier than most summers, Andrew and the locals assured me, but cooler and windier than that June commencement. And I returned to regular hot coffee, intermittendly injecting a Victrola iced latte as the occassional treat. 

That summer, Andrew's parents gifted him a fancy espresso machine for his birthday, inspiring him to concurrently invest in a fancy burr grinder. Although we still constantly went out to coffee shops for the atmosphere due to the fact that we're both hopeless addicts, my caffeine purchases dwindled. Not to mention I was nearly broke. And even though he took me out to the majority of our weekday and weekend dusk infused gourmet dinners, I had dedicated the summer to thesis research and relaxation, not money making. And regardless of his generosity and chivalry, it was tough keeping up with a long time Microsofter. After two intense years of graduate architecture school this seemed like a great idea. But it was a financial challenge to say the least. 

A year passed before I happened upon a place with cold brew back in San Diego. Jason and I were exploring the unsettled frontier near our thesis studio in Barrio Logan. Nestled like it was no big deal midst factories and metal scrap yards we found Cafe Virtuoso, a cool warehouse roastery and coffee shop. I'd say the quality of their cold brewed coffee here was even better than that fateful first sip at Stumptown. Virtuoso also charged about $3.50, but this time I knew why. The first sip evoked flash backs, rippling through my nervous system, making me vow to do this to myself every day. But in order to have enough funds to buy modeling materials and food, I'd have to learn how to employ this method of preparation on the homefront. But times got busy. Architecture times. And then I got Hadley. And until recently, I haven't revisited the idea of home brewing.

Until yesterday, to be exact. Ok, now with that flashback.. err...rant complete, it's time to get back to the cold brew:

I followed instructions made by LeDesordre, a barrista on Instructables.com: 

_One cut plastic water bottle,  
_Mexican dark roast beans my mom sent from her trip to Los Cabos 
_24 hours 
_and a mason jar 

and I am finally sipping on iced coffee, feeling that cold aftertaste release on my tongue and palatte. It turned out surprisingly strong. And smooth. I'm almost certain the double filtration system helped. Thanks, Ledesordre, whoever and wherever you are. Now if I could just teach Hadley to grind up coffee beans & set up the contraption nightly...