Hi, sorry this is long.
I'm mot much of a coffee drinker at all, but after about 30 years of avoiding it, I needed some extra caffeine in my life, so I broke down and tried some kind of pre-made Starbucks coffee from the grocery store, which I actually liked. It comes in a big refrigerated plastic jug with 5 or 6 servings. I would put some ice in a glass, pour the stuff over it, and have a nice refreshing cold beverage to start my day.
It's called "Starbucks Iced Coffee" and says "brewed to personalize" and is labeled as "premium coffee beverage". It comes in a few varieties: "lightly sweetened", "unsweetened", and "caramel". The Starbucks page for it is here.
So I like the stuff, but it's perishable and I feel a little silly spending around $1/cup for the convenience of having something pre-brewed, so I thought, theoretically I can make my own, right? But looking at the bottle, the only clue about what's in it or how it's made is the ingredient list, which is not very specific. Starbucks doesn't even have the ingredient list from the label on their web site, but Target does: "Brewed Starbucks Coffee (Water, Coffee), Sugar, Ascorbic Acid (to Protect Flavor)." OK great, but what kind of coffee, and how is it brewed?
This might all be super obvious to everyone in the world but me, but I'm extremely clueless about coffee. For example, I've never used a coffee machine to brew a pot of coffee. I've tried researching it but found a lot of confusing and sometimes contradictory information.
After a while, I concluded this stuff I like is probably cold brew coffee, so I took a leap and bought a Takeya Cold Brew Iced Coffee Maker, which seemed possibly right because it even says "Iced Coffee" in the name. And I read somewhere that cold brew coffee requires medium roast beans (still not 100% clear what that means), so for the last couple of months I've been buying various brands of coffee that say "medium roast" on them (including some Starbucks brand, figuring I'll hit on the right one), filling the pitcher with water and ground coffee, and letting it sit 12-24 hours in the refrigerator as the directions say to. But the results aren't great. It doesn't taste very good, nor it does it particularly resemble the stuff I like. (Also, some of the grinds end up making their way through the plastic filter mesh stuff, and the last cup of coffee has some sludge in it. Not sure whether this is normal.)
At this point, I'm starting to doubt whether cold brew is even the right process to be using. Maybe there's such a thing as brewing it hot and then chilling it to make iced coffee. Maybe that's even the normal way to make iced coffee for all I know.
So, any idea what I'd buy (equipment, beans, etc.) and what basic process I'd go through to make something like this? It doesn't have to be exactly the same thing or Starbucks brand, just something fairly similar.
Keep in mind that I'm clueless and an ELI5 answer would be helpful. So for example, if you say something like "just buy whatever type of bean you prefer" or "brew like normal", it will really not mean anything to me.
(Bonus question: I also like another product, the "Iced Espresso Classics", such as the Skinny Caramel Macchiato, so it'd be neat to know where to start in making that or one of their other flavors. I assume that since this one says "Espresso" explicitly on it, that implies the other one I mentioned above is not espresso? I still haven't found a clear definition of what "espresso" is, whether it's a different type of bean or brewing process or both or neither.)
Submitted April 11, 2017 at 05:08AM by adrianmonk http://ift.tt/2nyPC6Z Coffee
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