Summertime and cold brew coffee go hand in hand. Unless you’re my wife, who consumes it year-round. Additionally, it can be a delightful ingredient in some of your favorite cocktails.
Choosing the best coffee for cold brew starts with the end product in mind. You should choose a cheap coffee blend if your preferred coffee is sweet and creamy.
However, you should probably put a little more thought into your choice if you prefer to taste the notes of a single-origin coffee.
Here are our favorite, highly recommended coffee brands to make the best cold brew right now as you begin your cold brew journey.
Best Coffee For Cold Brew: 12 Top Picks
- 1. Atlas Cold Brew Coffee Subscription – Best Overall
- 2. Lifeboost Optimist Light Roast – Best Light Roast
- 3. Out Of The Grey Honduras Comsa – Best Single Origin
- 4. Coffee Bros Cold Brew Blend – Best Blend
- 5. Cold Buzz Coffee Hazelnut – Best Flavored Coffee
- 6. Stone Street Coffee Cold Brew Reserve – Best Dark Roast
- 7. Peet’s Coffee Baridi Blend – Best Medium Roast
- 8. Volcanica Coffee Cold Brew Blend – Budget Pick
- 9. Bizzy Cold Brew, Smooth & Sweet Blend – Best for Daily Drinkers
- 10. Illy Classico – Best Classic Espresso Flavor
- 11. Grady’s Cold Brew Bean Bags – Best New Orleans-Style Brew
- 12. Starbucks Honey & Madagascar Vanilla Flavored Coffee – Best Flavored Coffee
The Best Coffee For Cold Brew
1. Atlas Cold Brew Coffee Subscription – Best Overall
The best way to try new coffees and possibly find new favorites is with a subscription to coffee. Home Grounds recently unveiled a brand-new cold brew coffee subscription and believes Atlas is one of the best!
You’ll receive a brand-new specialty single-origin coffee every month that has been specifically chosen to taste great when brewed cold. You can choose a preference for lighter or darker roast profiles, or you can leave it up to the professionals at Atlas. If you have a reliable burr grinder at home, go with whole beans; if not, Atlas will grind your coffee to the ideal coarseness.
You won’t need any specialized tools, such as a cold brewer, because you will also receive a set of filter bags for cold brewing along with your coffee. Simple mason jars will work just fine. A lovely postcard highlighting the growing region and flavor profiles of each new coffee is included, as is the case with all Atlas coffee subscriptions.
2. Lifeboost Optimist Light Roast – Best Light Roast
This light-roasted single-origin Nicaraguan bean is currently being sold by The Lifeboost Coffee Company. You can see that the specifications are healthy, ethically produced, and environmentally friendly by reading them. But the majority of people still don’t understand that it also makes a fantastic cold brew.
Given that light roast coffees can be very acidic, we advise using this one for cold brew. You can make a smooth, flavor-bursting cold brew by cold brewing it for at least 16 hours to lessen the acidity.
Consider using this Lifeboost bean if you’re looking for something low in acidity, you want something healthy, or you simply want to make some cold brew with a unique taste from Central America.
3. Out Of The Grey Honduras Comsa – Best Single Origin
Out of the Grey’s Honduras Comsa, single-origin coffee is a very adaptable medium-bodied coffee that tastes great whether it is brewed hot or cold. Despite being a relatively dark roast, it has a noticeable acidity when brewed hot. However, the cold brew method greatly reduces this, leaving you with an ultra-smooth brew that has notes of honeydew melon, peach, delicate florals, and a bitter cocoa finish.
This Fairtrade coffee is delicious and supports Café Orgánico Marcala (COMSA), an excellent organization. This collective was established in 2001 with the goal of assisting small-scale coffee farmers in the Marcala region of Honduras by enhancing development opportunities and promoting better agricultural practices.
Both whole beans and pre-ground Out of the Grey coffee are available for purchase. If you’re opting for pre-ground, be sure to choose the “coarse” option, which is suitable for cold brew or French press.
4. Coffee Bros Cold Brew Blend – Best Blend
Two brothers who share a love of fine coffee founded the young company Coffee Bros. Their dedication to high-quality sourcing and small-batch roasting, which guarantees that each roast receives the consideration it deserves, set them apart from the competition.
Their medium roast Cold Brew Blend is expertly crafted to emphasize the sweet and juicy flavors you desire in a reviving cold brew.
A blend of 100% Arabica beans from Minas Gerais, Brazil, and Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia, two of the world’s top growing regions, serve as the foundation of this product. They choose naturally processed beans because they have a higher level of inherent sweetness and then carefully roast them to bring out this quality. A flavorful beverage with hints of chocolate, berry, and brown sugar is the end result.
5. Cold Buzz Coffee Hazelnut – Best Flavored Coffee
By selling pre-ground beans that are already in bags, similar to tea bags, Cold Buzz Coffee makes cold brewing as simple as possible. Simply add water, then let it soak all night.
Their 100% arabica beans come from Europe, Central and South America. Since cold brew uses a lot more grounds than hot coffee, it is more expensive, so they collaborate with roasters and wholesalers to try to keep prices low.
There are many flavors available at Cold Buzz Coffee, but the hazelnut is the best. The sweet, buttery flavor is enhanced with a dark roast that makes it perfect for cold brewing.
6. Stone Street Coffee Cold Brew Reserve – Best Dark Roast
Another American small-batch roaster that specializes in cold brew coffee is Stone Street Coffe e. They take great pride in having close sourcing ties to the top coffee farms and growing areas around the globe.
The premium Colombian Supremo single-origin arabica beans are dark roasted to create a strong, bold, well-balanced, and slightly sweet coffee flavor.
Colombian Supremo beans are characterized by notes of fruit, chocolate, and caramel and are widely considered to be among the best in the world.
7. Peet’s Coffee Baridi Blend – Best Medium Roast
Peet’s is among the biggest and most reputable roasters and suppliers of fine coffees. A specialty blend called Baridi, which means “cold” in Swahili, was created for both iced coffee and cold brew. The beans used to make the blend come from Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Rwanda, though they are not single-origin coffees.
These countries’ products were chosen in order to maximize aroma, which is frequently absent from cold coffee.
The fruity, juiciness of beans from this region makes this a particularly refreshing cold beverage. Following some testing, it was determined that a medium roast would produce a flavor that was bold, smooth, and just a little bit sweet.
8. Volcanica Coffee Cold Brew Blend – Budget Pick
With years of experience sourcing and roasting the best coffee from the world’s top growing regions, Volcanica Coffee is well-versed in creating the ideal cold brew blend. This medium roast blend is the complete opposite of some of the single-origin recommendations on this list; it’s a crowd-pleaser.
In the Volcanica Cold Brew blend, Sumatran coffee beans—known for their robust, earthy flavors and heavy body—are combined with sweeter, lower-acid Arabica coffee from the Americas. A cup with the satisfying flavors of chocolate and nuts is the end result, which is beautifully balanced.
This blend has a very low acid content by nature, and the cold brewing process highlights this even more. Anyone who is sensitive to acidity or who simply prefers a smoother flavor profile should definitely consider it.
9. Bizzy Cold Brew, Smooth & Sweet Blend – Best For Daily Drinkers
A flavorful yet smooth brew is essential if you never go without your cold brew. We adore Bizzy Brew because it has the rich, roasted flavor we love but isn’t too strong to give you a stomachache if you drink a glass (or two) a day. Plus, it’s practical; the organic, ethically sourced beans are already ground and served in bags, and you can have it delivered on a regular basis to your door via Amazon (and save up to 10% by subscribing). Simply put two in a pitcher, add four cups of water, let it sit for 12 hours, then add a little more water, and you’re ready to go.
10. Illy Classico – Best Classic Espresso Flavor
Look for Illy if you want a strong cup of coffee with the same intensity as an espresso shot. Its 100% Arabica beans are packaged in a tin can for maximum freshness, and the company advises using them within 15 days of opening (which, as you’ll see after taking a sip, won’t be an issue). These beans have a robust flavor and a clean finish. While Classico is widely available ground, it is very finely ground, making whole beans a better choice for cold brew in particular.
11. Grady’s Cold Brew Bean Bags – Best New Orleans-style Brew
Nowadays, you can enjoy a fantastic cup of coffee made in New Orleans without a French press, a cold brew machine, or even a trip to NOLA. The essential Louisiana ingredient chicory, which gives the coffee its slightly nutty flavor, is included in Grady’s cold brew bags along with coffee, spices, and other ingredients. To make your concentrate, simply place the bags in a pitcher, fill it with water, and let it steep for 12 to 24 hours. That is as simple as it gets. Oh, and if you’re unsure whether or not you’d like chicory-flavored coffee, take into account that our discerning reviewer drinks it every day and claims it’s the best cold brew he’s ever had.
12. Starbucks Honey & Madagascar Vanilla Flavored Coffee – Best Flavored Coffee
Starbucks’s most recent offering is for you if you consistently request your cold brew with an extra pump (or three) of your preferred syrup. You can smell freshly baked cookies from the grounds alone, and as soon as you take a sip, you taste rich vanilla and caramel notes. (Some testers speculated that it might also contain cocoa.) If you use flavored creamer, you can get away with using a little less sugar to achieve a sweet but not overly sweet result.
What Is Cold Brew?
Coffee that has been brewed for at least four hours without the use of any hot water is known as cold brew.
Water that is at room temperature is acceptable, but cold water is unquestionably advised for cold brewing. The main distinction between iced coffee and cold brew is this.
Related Reading: Difference Between Cold Brew And Iced Coffee
How To Make Cold Brew Coffee?
Either the drip or immersion methods can be used to make cold brew coffee. The cold brew concentrate’s flavor profile is influenced by each different process’s distinct brewing time.
There are various tools and procedures needed for each of these cold brewing techniques. While the other is essentially just a drip system that is left on for a while, the first requires steeping. The two approaches do share some similarities, though.
If filtered cold water with ice cubes is used instead of room temperature water, both methods will yield the best cold brew coffee. In order to achieve the best results, coarse ground coffee with a low acidity has the best flavor profile for either method.
Factors To Consider When Buying The Best Coffee For Cold Brew
Use
How do you like your cold brew? When choosing your cold brew coffee, bear this in mind. You have a variety of options when it comes to beans, including nitro, concentrate, canned, and New Orleans-style. Do you prepare food in bulk or in single servings? Select an equivalent number of beans.
Flavor Profile
Given that water and coffee are the only two ingredients in cold brew, you want to make sure both are of the highest caliber. While keeping in mind that the acidity will change with cold brew, look for flavor profiles you typically enjoy in hot coffee. Avoid coffees that have additional flavors or spices.
Sustainability
Be on the lookout for companies that prioritize sustainability. Be on the lookout for methods like pesticide-free farming or coffees grown as part of a cooperative that benefits the farmers financially.
Our Verdict
Few things are as gratifying as sipping cold brew coffee on a hot summer day. However, many coffee drinkers don’t just consume cold brew during the summer.
Most likely, the coffee that you prefer to drink is the best for cold brew. The top eight iced coffees on the market have been chosen by Home Grounds. Your choice now is to either try something new or stick to your usual routine of drinking light or dark roasts.
For us, the best choice is the variety of options that Atlas Coffee Club offers with their cold brew subscription. If we were able to bring tasty food to your door, we’d love to know what you decided.
Read More: Does Cold Brew Have More Caffeine?
FAQs
How To Store Coffee Beans?
Beans should be kept in an airtight container to maintain their freshness. To preserve the flavors, keep them away from sunlight and at room temperature.
How Long Do Coffee Beans Last?
Beans should be kept in an airtight container to maintain their freshness. To preserve the flavors, keep them away from sunlight and at room temperature.
How Fine Do You Ground Them?
The grounds should be ground medium to coarsely if you want to make a cold brew. Beans can have a bitter taste if they are ground too finely.