Why we will drink Cold Brew at home

Cold Brew’s popularity is on the rise, with coffee lovers increasingly opting for it over classic hot drinks like Espresso or Americano. Coffee shops worldwide have expanded their repertoire to include a vast Cold Brew selection that satisfies every taste. Gen Z and Millennials, in particular, have gravitated toward the drink and have even started preparing it at home, helping to nudge coffee culture into the so-called Fourth Wave.

The rise of the Fourth Wave

The Third Wave, which started in the early 2000s, veered coffee off its mostly industrial, commodity-grade course, and emphasised a focus on quality. This movement inspired new signature drinks, such as the Flat White, and brewing apparatus like the AeroPress. As coffee culture evolved, coffee lovers started to lean toward new drinks, and habits developed, from a less rigid approach, encouraging greater experimentation. As a result, coffee has generally started to play more of a supporting role in this new surge of beverages that characterise the Fourth Wave, with Cold Brew standing front and centre.

The Fourth Wave expands on the Third Wave to forge coffee culture ahead. During the pandemic, coffee culture switched gears as the lockdown inspired coffee lovers to recreate their favourite coffee shop creations at home. Some of the more adventurous took it even further, playfully infusing their beverages with whimsy in the form of fruity and floral flavours, colours, cold foams, and even “wellness” ingredients.

What is Cold Brew?

Cold Brew, which is versatile and easy to mix, has been catapulted into the spotlight by coffee’s Fourth Wave. However, for all its simplicity, Cold Brew is arguably the most time-consuming preparation. Unlike Iced Coffee, which calls for adding ice to hot coffee, Cold Brew requires (at least) a 12-hour steep and, consequently, the patience to wait for the infusion to develop. Moreover, since it’s never heated, Cold Brew has less bitterness and acidity than hot Espresso, as these two distinct flavours are a result of the hot brewing process.

To help coffee lovers experiment with their coffee at home, De’Longhi developed its ground-breaking Cold Extraction Technology. The first of its kind, De’Longhi Cold Extraction Technology, available in the fully automatic Eletta Explore, and La Specialista Maestro manual machine, creates Cold Brew drinks in under 5 minutes.

#ColdBrew Trending

Hashtag #ColdBrew is also multiplying. Cheryl Giles, De’Longhi’s Australia-based Product Trainer, has noticed an uptick in Cold Brew content and recipes on social media. She credits Cold Brew’s light, refreshing, bright taste, especially during the summer, as the motivation for its role in “great recipes that honour the coffee flavour as the hero. Things like Cold Brew with lemon cream or Tiramisu Cold Brew and mocktail-style recipes are really starting to dominate the coffee posts.”

Though the lengthy at-home preparation time is discouraging, Cold Brew’s ever-increasing popularity has prompted home baristas to give it a whirl, even motivating coffee lovers to upgrade their home coffee machines. With the Fourth Wave underway, De’Longhi Eletta Explore provides an ideal starting point.