Starbucks is introducing cold brew coffee, and the world just got a little more hipster. On March 31, the coffee behemoth will start selling Starbucks Cold Brew in 2,800 stores across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern United States. If you live in Boston or San Francisco, where the company has been testing the new product, you may have already gotten a taste.
You could call cold brew the artisanal way of making coffee, so of course it's become associated with hipster culture. Made with cold water instead of hot, it's a slower method of making coffee that requires some advanced planning and typically a manual steeping process. Starbucks has already tried assimilating into Williamsburg, Brooklyn's hipster Disneyland. It stands to reason that it would introduce cold brew coffee.
We're not complaining. Cold brew coffee has a milder, smoother and often sweeter taste than iced coffee that was first made with hot water. It can be up to 67 percent less acidic than hot coffee (or the iced coffee that comes from it).
Starbucks has been testing its new product since last summer. After testing different roast levels, beans, brewing time and styles of cold brewing, the company settled on a blend that consists of coffee from Latin America and Africa, a press release explains. The new cold coffee will brew for 20 hours to achieve "the right balance of sweetness with citrusy and chocolate notes.”
With spring around the corner, and iced coffee season about to hit full bloom, this announcement couldn't have come at a better time. Something may indeed be lost in picking up a cold brew coffee at the global coffee giant rather than at your local coffee store, run by your local hipsters. But if this means we'll see even one fewer Tiramisu Frappuccino out there, we'll take it.
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