What is cold drip coffee?

Have you seen these things that look like something that's escaped from a chem lab lurking in trendy coffee shops?


They create cold drip coffee and it's a long process.

Cold brew or cold press refers to the process of steeping coffee grounds in room temperature water for an extended period. The cold-press process uses coarsely ground coffee beans that have been soaked in cold water for a prolonged period of time, usually 12 hours or more. The grounds must be filtered out of the cold water after they have been steeped using a paper coffee filter, a fine metal sieve, or a French Press. The result is a coffee concentrate that is often diluted with water or milk, and can be served hot, over ice or blended with ice and other ingredients such as chocolate.

Cold brewed coffee naturally seems sweeter due to its lower acidity. Because the coffee beans in cold-press coffee never come into contact with heated water, the process of leaching flavor from the beans produces a different chemical profile than conventional brewing methods.

If you like iced coffee, do try cold press.

This display was set up at Merlo's Paddington store on Latrobe Terrace, but I've also seen it at Dandelion and Driftwood at Hendra.

Have you seen cold drip in action at other Brisbane coffee shops?  Do you like the flavour?