From coffee shop drive-thrus to deliveries and RTD options, there is no doubt that the coffee scene has changed dramatically in the past few years. At the moment, one of the most popular drinks on the market is cold coffee.
Cold coffee can take the form of cold brew, iced coffee, or even coffee cocktails. These drinks are relatively easy to make and can freshen up any café menu during the summer months. While younger consumers are the main drivers of interest for cold beverages, the segment keeps expanding.
As such, coffee shops and roasters should be taking note. I spoke to a coffee innovation expert to explore more about how coffee shops can incorporate cold coffee into their menu. Read on to learn more.
The popularity of cold coffee
Make no mistake, the consumption of colder coffee beverages is on the rise. Not too long ago, cold specialty coffee drinks could only be found in a few select coffee shops. Today, its growth in popularity is evident worldwide.
In a speech delivered at 2016’s Re:co Symposium in Atlanta, John Buckner, Vice President of Marketing for S&D Coffee and Tea, reported a 40% increase in the consumption of iced and frozen coffee in the five previous years.
In the USA alone, Allegra World Coffee Portal estimates total iced beverage sales of US $10.4 billion across the specialty coffee shop sector in 2020. The annual growth of the segment corresponded to 7.3%.
The report also indicates that while warm weather is a key driver for any increase in iced beverage consumption, 36% of US consumers still purchase them during wintertime.
Similarly, Allegra reports a sustained sales growth of iced beverages in the UK. Project Iced UK 2019 showed a sales increase of 14.3% in 2018, with cold brew being one of the most widely available cold coffee options in the country.
Cold coffee drinks
One of the most appealing qualities of cold coffee is that there are many ways to prepare it. These days, coffee shops offer a variety of options, including regular iced americanos or lattes, cold brew, cold drip, and all kinds of unique, seasonal drinks.
Bailey Manson is Director of Innovation at Intelligentsia Coffee in the United States. At the company’s locations, cold coffee-based drinks are growing in popularity.
After lattes, Intelligentsia’s next most popular drink is a fresh chilled coffee concentrate. However, he points out that cold, seasonal drinks are very popular too, especially during summer. The baristas typically make them by combining coffee concentrate with other ingredients, including fruit juices, carbonated drinks, and syrup.
He says: “Those cold coffee drinks and spiced lattes continue to be the next most interesting things that are sort of moving seasonally. In the past, we’ve done them with a drink that we call ‘limelight’, which is like a cold coffee with lime juice, tonic, and simple syrup.”
With so many options for cold coffee drinks, including them in your menu should not be overcomplicated. Bailey says that it’s important to adapt to the changing demands of consumers. Ultimately, he says, this will get them more interested in specialty coffee.
He explains: “I mean, we definitely get people who come in and start by ordering drinks with a lot of milk and sweetener and flavor or something like that.”
“And gradually, over time, when they come in 300 times a year, we see some of these people move more and more toward coffee-focused drinks.”
He also says that if you’re flexible enough to offer new drinks, you can captivate new customers and keep existing ones interested.
Preparing cold coffee
The first step to offering cold coffee beverages is deciding which drinks are best suited for your café and how you’re going to prepare them.
Cold brew, for instance, takes somewhere between six and 24 hours to prepare. Its natural sweetness and smoothness make it a great alternative to sugary sodas and energy drinks.
The same goes for ice drip brewing. Also known as Kyoto and Dutch ice drip, this technique involves cold water slowly dripping onto coffee. Essentially, it’s an extremely slow pour over, taking around 24 hours to complete.
A faster and easier option is the Japanese iced coffee method. This approach involves brewing hot coffee directly onto ice. It’s quite different from cold brew; in this case, hot water extracts more acidity, resulting in a bright, crisp, and refreshing cold coffee.
Using coffee concentrate
Bailey explains that Intelligentsia uses coffee concentrate in both its hot and chilled beverages. As its name indicates, this is essentially concentrated coffee which can be used as a base for any drink, be it americanos, lattes, or even affogatos and espresso martinis.
Typically, a shot of coffee concentrate is used instead of an espresso shot. For Bailey, Intelligentsia’s drinks definitely taste better with concentrate.
He says: “Almost all of them are more than happy with it and enjoy it. Every now and then, people ask for something with a freshly brewed espresso.”
Bailey also points out that using concentrate cuts out some of the inherent negatives of espresso, such as the difficulties of being consistent with every single extraction.
Equipment such as Marco’s POUR’D is perfect for cafés looking to add new levels of variety to their menu. The system allows cold or hot concentrated coffee to be served from a single tap.
This coffee dispenser can be installed in a fridge, kegerator, or on a counter, and is compatible with any RTD bag-in-box cold coffee source.
Bailey adds that its size makes the POUR’D very compelling. Since it doesn’t take as much space, it can be installed even on small and busy counters.
He adds: “[It’s] another equipment innovation that’s bringing access to an offering that people just haven’t had before. It’s creating opportunities for almost everyone to do really interesting, very flexible things.”
Cold coffees can be a great option to freshen up your menu during those long summer days. However, their popularity is already proving to go beyond seasonality. Whether as cold brew or special blends, offering them will diversify your menu and keep customers interested.
Plus, with so many different ways to prepare them, why not play around and experiment to find the drinks that work best for your café? You might just discover the next big specialty coffee trend.
