Blue Bottle’s Kyoto-Style Iced Coffee

Published on Tuesday, May 27, 2008, by Aida Mollenkamp / Edit Post

I keep breaking my own rules—like drinking only one cup of coffee a day. I’m usually good about limiting myself, but every morning I pass the new Blue Bottle Café and it’s like catnip. Catnip called Kyoto-style iced coffee, to be precise.

I became tempted after seeing two machines along the far wall of Blue Bottle: There’s a shiny, halogen-lit contraption that looks more like an alien spaceship than a coffee pot (it’s the $20K one that the New York Times covered extensively), and the glass machine used to make Kyoto-style coffee that resembles something out of a Jules Verne novel.

To make one pot of Kyoto-style coffee, room-temperature water is dripped over coffee grounds for eight hours. This produces a sort of concentrated coffee that is diluted over ice. (Blue Bottle owner James Freeman gave the coffee its name because this brewing method is prevalent in Kyoto.) I was immediately addicted, as it’s all the things I love in a good coffee: well balanced and flavorful, with notes of tobacco, tea, and wood. Unlike anything else I’ve ever sipped.

Blue Bottle Café
66 Mint Street, San Francisco, California
415-495-3394

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POST A COMMENT |8 Comments

COMMENT

  • Wow Ronni, that sounds just like an advertisement!

  • There's a new cold brew coffee maker on the market called the Hourglass. I just bought one and I love it. It is a lot easier and less messy than other cold brewers or doing it at home with cheesecloth. It even comes with it's own blue bottle. Totally cool. Check their website out www.hourglasscoffee.com.

  • We use about 3/4 pound of coffee grounds to a gallon of water and just let it sit in a jar overnight then filter it through paper cone filters- it's just as good as Toddy coffee and no special equipment is required.

  • "what's keeping me from just throwing some coffee into a jar with
    cold water and letting it sit in the fridge overnight?"

    If you use the right proportions of coffee to water, add the water in the correct sequence (you add a certain amount, stir and then add the rest) and have a good method for filtering it - I can't see any reason why you can't do that. Both the Toddy and the Filtron use a disc...+READ

    "what's keeping me from just throwing some coffee into a jar with
    cold water and letting it sit in the fridge overnight?"

    If you use the right proportions of coffee to water, add the water in the correct sequence (you add a certain amount, stir and then add the rest) and have a good method for filtering it - I can't see any reason why you can't do that. Both the Toddy and the Filtron use a disc shaped filter of some fibrous material - about 3.5" wide and rather thick - about .75". I don't know what the deal with the filter is but it does seem to allow it to filter more better than a paper filter would.-COLLAPSE

  • My mother's oldest friend was from The Netherlands and her parents had spent many years in Indonesia. She made this cold brew coffee and kept it on the counter during the cold months and in the fridge in summer. It was a concentrate to which she added hot or cold water. I was too young to drink coffee then, but my mother thought it was great and adopted it for a while.

    I don't remember the exact...+READ

    My mother's oldest friend was from The Netherlands and her parents had spent many years in Indonesia. She made this cold brew coffee and kept it on the counter during the cold months and in the fridge in summer. It was a concentrate to which she added hot or cold water. I was too young to drink coffee then, but my mother thought it was great and adopted it for a while.

    I don't remember the exact process she used.-COLLAPSE

  • My mother's oldest friend was from The Netherlands and her parents had spent many years in Indonesia. She made this cold brew coffee and kept it on the counter during the cold months and in the fridge in summer. It was a concentrate to which she added hot or cold water. I was too young to drink coffee then, but my mother thought it was great and adopted it for a while.

  • This $30 Toddy Cold Brew Coffee System (TM) is nice and all but
    what's keeping me from just throwing some coffee into a jar with
    cold water and letting it sit in the fridge overnight? Do I need
    another machine?

  • "Kyoto-style" iced coffee is better known as just plain cold brewed coffee or often called "Toddy" coffee. Toddy is the brand name of the most widely used cold brew systems - widely available for under $30 (Filtron is another less popular brand). Cold brewing is done the same way regardless of what system is used and yields a concentrated coffee that has reduced acidity and is ideal in iced...+READ

    "Kyoto-style" iced coffee is better known as just plain cold brewed coffee or often called "Toddy" coffee. Toddy is the brand name of the most widely used cold brew systems - widely available for under $30 (Filtron is another less popular brand). Cold brewing is done the same way regardless of what system is used and yields a concentrated coffee that has reduced acidity and is ideal in iced drinks. You can make it at home and the concentrate keeps well in the fridge for about a week or so. Try an Indonesian coffee (Java, Sumatran, Sulawesi or Papua New Guinea) for best results. You can use Central/South Amercian or African beans but the Indonesians seem to lend themselves best to this process.-COLLAPSE