On The Cheap: Ode to Cold Brew

I've gotten to that point in my lifetime where I am occasionally confronted with the realization of how I am turning into my parents. Sometimes this realization makes me fearful; other times, there is a funny kind of joy to be found. One of these realizations is that in my 30's, I've become my mother's son: I fucking love a good deal.

Mum was unemployed for a good chunk of the time I lived at home (the job market where I grew up is a bummer). And so Mum became an expert, by necessity, in how to stretch a buck. She was a deal-finding wizard. Apparently, I took note of this quality.

While throughout my life, I've never been agnostic to the costs of the things I buy, I now find myself experiencing a genuine elation when I am able to save money on a thing I buy routinely. That feeling is probably the most frequently felt in terms of how I manage my coffee habit. Because, unfortunately, I have never been a generic/simple coffee consumer--I'm that sucker who needs my coffee fancified.

tl;dr: if you drink a lot of coffee, don't want to spend a lot of money on equipment, and have an ill-advised attraction to hoity-toity drinks, then you should get on the train for cold brew coffee. I save an ignorant amount of money making cold brew drinks at home (usually 2-3/day) rather than paying for them elsewhere.

How and Why to Make Cold Brew

The "cold" in "cold brew" is not, as many assume, about the temperature of the beverage you consume. Rather, it's about how you make the coffee. Here's a quick breakdown:

1. You take ~10-12 oz (a bag) of coarsely ground espresso beans
2. You steep them in room-temperature water, in a vessel (the Toddy and Oxo options are both tried-and-true kits I've used [my Toddy lasted me the better part of 15 years]) for ~12-24 hours.
3. You drain the coffee through a filter (built into your vessel
4. Voilla: coffee (which you can keep in your fridge for a week or two). Or rather, coffee concentrate, which most will dilute in another liquid when making a drink

It's dead-simple to make, and beyond the selection of quality beans, theres very few ways for you to fuck it up.

Moreover, beyond its cost-saving, there are some incredible features of cold brew:

• You usually make a week or two's worth of coffee in one batch,
• There's only one "round" of clean up (i.e., no daily clean up ritual),
• It travels exceptionally well; put it in a vessel, throw it in a cooler, and take it on the road with you--any gas station will have whatever other liquids (hot/cold water, milks, etc.) you want to mix it with.
• For those of us with stomach problems*, cold brew is the lowest acidity method of making coffee that you'll find (owing to the absence of heat)

Enjoying Cold Brew

You can then enjoy your cold brew any number of ways (and at any temperature). Want to keep it simple?

• Add hot water, and you've got a great americano
• Add cold water, over ice, and you've got yourself a nifty iced coffee

For years, however, my go-to has been cold brew in chocolate milk–a quick-n-dirty cold brew ice mocha. I don't care that it makes me sound like I drink my coffee like a 5-year old. It's awesome (and works well with dairy alternatives like oat and almond)!

More recently, my partner and I have kicked our coffee fanciness up a notch by making shaken espresso drinks with cold brew. Per person, you need:

• 1/3 of a cup of cold brew
• 1/8 of a cup of some kind of syrup (I've used all kinds, but some half-decent maple has done a very good job)
• A ~cup of your choice of milk
• Cinnamon

In a shaker, shake with ice the cold brew, syrup, and a good sprinkle of cinnamon. Pour over the milk (and ice) in your chosen cup. You can strain the shaken mixture, if you like, but I find that you get a good amount of the foamed syrup sticking to the residual ice cubes in the shaker, that make for a pleasant feeling.

"Coffee Math"

Okay, so cold brew might sound convenient/good, and you can make a lot of different drinks with it. But a money saver?

Like I said: I drink 2-3 coffee drinks a day. And when I was a grad student, I typically got my drinks (which were no less fancy) at my favourite café (gods I miss the coffee scene in American college towns). In today's Canadian dollars, including tip, this would cost me (using Starbucks's offerings as an approximation) about $8/drink.

That's $16 - $24/day

That's $112 - $168/week

That's ~$450 - $670/month

That's ~$5,800 - $8,700/year

Damn.

Now, let's run this back with cold brew.

A one time expense of $60-$100 for a cold brewing kit (there are cheaper alternatives, but YMMV with quality, and I can personally vouch for the quality of both the Toddy** and OXO options), and then all you're looking at is the cost of beans. To make the math simple, a decent bag of espresso beans will cost you ~$20, and makes about a week's worth of coffee (at 2-3 drinks per day). A 2L of milk, meanwhile costs about $5, and will also last you for about. a week.

That's ~$60-$100, + ($20*52), or ~$60 - $100 for the set up, and $1,300/year for the makings of your preferred beverages.

I'd be spending nearly 4.5x - 7x as much money to sustain this bougie habit buying my coffee drinks elsewhere. That kind of savings delights me.

The Take Home: Great Coffee, Much Cheaper

Is $1,000/year for coffee extravagant? Probably.

Am I a coffee-brat for requiring a fancy drink for all my caffeinated beverages? Certainly.

But friends: you can cut your coffee bill to ~1/5th or 1/7th of what you'd pay, while having all the fanciful (or straightforward) coffee drinks you want!

What other approach to making coffee affords this kind of convenience, flexibility, and cost-efficiency?

I say: none other than cold brew.

Footnotes

*I found out I have a hiatal hernia, in grad school, after getting an ulcer. My doctor said I should I cut out caffeine, alcohol, and spicy foods. I told her that I was going to need another solution (hurray for proton pump inhibiters!)

** Though the replacement price of the reusable filters for the Toddy have become sinfully expensive for what they are. The OXO, while more expensive and producing less volume, has a permanent/reusable metal filter, and is easier to clean, so it's become our go-to.