Cold Drip Coffee

I managed to live 19 years before I enjoyed coffee. To me it was always bitter and yuck and not interesting.  One day, for no apparent reason, I decided to buy a coffee and for no apparent reason it tasted good.  No bitterness, no yuck.  It was smooth, aromatic, flavoursome, creamy.  Since then I've been enjoying it in its many forms over the years.  At certain times of my life I got a bit hooked and had to reduce my intake because it increased to about 4-5 a day.  Even now with a reduced daily intake, without my morning coffee I am less than human. I may be awake but my brain is soup and I have a case of word salad when I try to say anything that requires thought.  At work I actually try to stick to instant in order to keep good coffee for home and out as something special.  Work coffee is just about being awake and nothing else.

At the beginning of the year we went to a coffee shop where we saw a cold drip coffee maker and were blown away by its design. It looked like a lab experiment.  And cold coffee? I mean iced coffee sure but just cold coffee?

So we talked to the barrister.  He explained that it is  just another way of brewing.  It allows the same beans to taste completely different, building and expanding on your usual experiences with your coffee beans.  The iced water drips slowly through the ground beans (encased top and bottom with filters) and due to the temperature not a speck of coffee bean burn occurs in the process.  This means that your brew will be less bitter and have less acidity.  Fruitier blends will really shine using this method, but we love it for most flavour profiles.  A pot of cold coffee takes between 3 - 8 hours to brew.  We tried it and it was delicious.   Now I see Cold Drip Coffee towers in boutique coffee shops all over our city.

For the Dragon's birthday present earlier this year, I decided to invest in a Cold Drip Coffee tower.  He prides himself on being a scientist so I knew he would love the design of the product.  Trouble was, I struggled to find what I wanted in Australia at the time, so I couldn't get a black tower which would be my preference.  After much searching I finally stumbled upon the Tiamo 8 cup Cold Drip Coffee tower.  Now you can access much more variety online.

One of the Dragon's friends described the 3 - 8 hour wait for brewed coffee as an exercise in "torture", but we tend to make it over night or first thing on Saturday morning.  That way it is either ready by morning, or if made in the day time the tower is fragrant art on our table throughout the day and ready to consume in the afternoon.  The best thing? Since it makes 8 cups, you can store it in the fridge and it is ready in a flash whenever you want it.  Below is a how-to-guide with a few hints thrown in along the way.

Cider Adventure

Bunny Bounce - Pear Cider Edition

Recently the Dragon and I forayed into a new realm – cider brewing.   He used to brew beer in a keg in his cupboard at college years ago (classy I know – can you imagine the smell?) and I got my first Home Brew kit last year.  I didn’t want it to be a yucky eye sore, so I got a white and wood country-kitchen looking table from the shops (about $30 I think) and assembled it to make a very girlie keg zone. I also got a pink white and green stripey bucket to go with it – its a pretty cute set-up.  Or at least it will be once we finish renovating the garage where we house it.

In total, we spent about $33.50 on the cider mix and the dextrose, which made 30 litres.  So that works out at about $3.35 a litre.  A quick google search showed me that carton of 24 x 330ml Monteith's pear cider (my favourite pear cider) sells for about $65.  A carton = 7.9 L appprox.  Given that this batch made just shy of 4 x that amount, I'm pretty happy with the cost.

Neither of us has done ciders before so it sounded like a fun challenge.  We have collected a bunch of adorable green beer bottles in the shape of buddha which we will be using.  See below for a review of our experience.