In Mexico last week, I wanted coffee in the afternoon, but the idea of drinking something hot sounded terrible. Cold brew is also nice because it’s both less acidic than normal coffee (perhaps due to the slower extraction?), and also less bitter.

Turns out, making your own cold brew at home is delicious. Here you go:

Cold Brew: A Really Simple Recipe

1. Grind up some coffee. Pick your favorite beans — I love Blue Bottle’s “Giant Steps” blend, but anything works, including decaf. Put it in a pitcher, preferably one with a lid.
2. For every 1 unit of coffee you used (cup, teacup-ful, scoop, whatever), put in 3 units of water.
3. Put the lid on the pitcher (or cover it with Saran wrap, or whatever), and stick it in the fridge. Forget about it for about 12 hours. (For this reason, this is best done overnight.)
4. In the morning, strain out the grounds. You can do this by pouring this through a paper coffee filter, or a metal one, or a fine-grained sieve, or probably cheesecloth. You’ll find that you have less volume now that the grounds are removed, so strain into the vessel you want to keep it in — a giant Mason jar will work well, since the more tightly you seal it, the longer it will keep.

That’s it. This new stuff is your coffee concentrate, which you can keep in the fridge, sealed, for at least a week if not more. (Not that any of the batches we made in Mexico stuck around long enough to find out.)

To make a drink, dilute the concentrate 1:1 with water. I like to put it on ice, add some soy milk and simple syrup (sugar boiled into solution in water, 1:1) or just sweetened soy milk. Make it however you like.

Enjoy!