KYOTO-STYLE SLOW DRIP COFFEE: MAKING COMPELLING COLD BREW
I hope you enjoy my tried-and-tested recipe for brewing the best Kyoto-style slow drip coffee!
I understand if you’ve never considered making Kyoto-style cold brew at home. It looks fussy and complicated, and it takes most of a day.
Could it really be worth your while? Absolutely!
Slow drip is the only cold brewing method that maintains the subtle complexity of the best specialty coffees. And while some patience is required, the actual effort is minimal. I’ll teach you how in this easy recipe. Get ready to be shocked by how flavorful a cold brew can be.
How To Make Kyoto-Style Coffee at Home
Originating in Kyoto, Japan, in the 17th century, Kyoto cold-drip coffee is prized for its nuanced flavors, making it the perfect cold coffee to showcase your best specialty beans (1). It’s not a fast process, but the results are worth the wait!
Watch Steven from Home Brews Coffee compare Kyoto Slow Drip with immersion cold brew, iced coffee, and more in this video:
Ingredients and Gear You’ll Need
- Slow dripper
- Paper or metal coffee filter
- 50 – 70 g coffee beans
- Burr coffee grinder
- Coffee scale
- Filtered water
- Ice
AT A GLANCE
TIME
4 to 24 hours
YIELD
6 to 8 servings of concentrate
What is the Kyoto drip method?
In Kyoto slow-drip coffee, cold water is dripped slowly over a bed of coffee grounds for up to 24 hours. It’s essentially an extremely slow motion pour over done with cold water.
There are various slow-drip Kyoto style coffee makers, all consisting of three stacked chambers – one for water, one for coffee grounds, and one for the finished brewed coffee – and a sturdy support frame. The Yama Glass Coffee Tower is one of the most popular and eye-catching models.
You can use a paper or metal filter when brewing Kyoto-style coffee. Choose paper if you prefer a cleaner cup of coffee, or choose metal for a heavier-bodied brew.
What is the ratio for Kyoto-style cold brew?
A coffee-to-water ratio will be suggested by the manufacturer of your cold brew tower, typically between 1:5 and 1:10. That’s a great starting place, but feel free to experiment to suit your taste. I like a ratio of 1:8.
What is the best coffee to use for Kyoto-style coffee?
You can use any good quality beans, including blends and single origins of any roast level. However, because this brewing method showcases coffees with complex and delicate flavors, I’d recommend a light or medium roast single-origin coffee bean from Central America, South America, or East Africa.
It’s best to start with whole coffee beans and grind your coffee with a burr coffee grinder right before brewing to ensure the most flavorful cup of coffee. If you don’t own a burr grinder, try to buy your beans at a coffee shop or roastery that will grind them to order.
A Step-By-Step Guide To Making Kyoto Cold Brew
Looking at the towering equipment required for brewing Kyoto-style drip coffee, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a complicated method reserved for professionals. And coffee shops are happy to take your money and let that myth persist. But in fact, it’s simpler than many other brewing methods, because that fancy-looking cold brew dripper does all the work for you.
Ready to get started? Okay, let’s go ahead and make ourselves a perfect cup of cold coffee.
1. Measure and grind the coffee
Weigh the amount of coffee recommended by the manufacturer of your coffee brewer – usually between 50 and 70 grams of coffee.
How should you grind coffee for a slow drip brewing?
Grind the coffee beans to medium using a burr grinder, ensuring that you knock any stuck coffee grounds out of the grinder. Aim for the same grind size as for an automatic drip coffee machine, using this chart as a guide if necessary.
Pro tip: If you need to buy pre-ground coffee, look for a brand labeled with its roast date so that you know it’s fresh.
2. Add the coffee to the cold drip tower
Place a coffee filter at the bottom of the ground coffee chamber, then add the fresh coffee grinds to prepare the coffee bed.
Pro tip: If you use a paper filter, especially an unbleached version, rinse it with hot water first to remove any possible paper taste.
3. Measure and add the water
Measure the amount of water you need based on the ratio given by the manufacturer. Add the water to the water chamber at the top of the coffee tower, and top off the chamber with ice.
4. Start the brewing process
The base of the water chamber has a valve that controls water flow. The more you open it, the faster the drip rate. Adjusting the drip rate impacts the flavor profile and brew time.
A typical starting point is one drip per second, but some baristas prefer a faster rate of 1.5 drips per second.
Total brew time varies depending on how much coffee you’re brewing, your drip rate, the design of your brewer, and the ratio of water to the coffee. It can range from 4 to 24 hours.
Cold drip brewing is mostly hands-off, but you may need to check in a few times to ensure the drip speed stays consistent.
Pro tip: Want to enjoy an iced coffee without waiting until tomorrow? I have a recipe for that, too! Check out this version of Japanese-style iced coffee.
5. Dilute and enjoy
The slow drip method produces a coffee concentrate which you should dilute with cold filtered water to taste. I’d start with a 1:2 ratio – 2 ounces of coffee and 4 ounces of water. The coffee is then poured over ice to serve.
Pro tip: Slow drip is usually served black, but if that’s not to your taste, you can always add cream or dilute using milk (either dairy or non-dairy).
Final Thoughts
Preparing Japanese-style slow drip coffee is not the fastest, cheapest, or most practical way to brew iced coffee. But that’s not why you should be doing it. Instead, make slow drip cold brew coffee to tease flavors from your coffee that you would lose in other cold brew methods. And the fact that the towering glass brewer will wow any brunch guests is just a happy bonus!
FAQs
Slow drip cold coffee concentrate, as prepared, is very strong. The longer brew time ensures that cold brew is just as caffeinated as hot coffee (2). You can drink the concentrate, but the flavor profile will be off, and the caffeine content will be exceptionally high.
Kyoto cold drip coffee is usually taken black and unsweetened. Because this coffee brewing technique highlights the more subtle flavors of a specialty coffee, it is better not to mask those flavors with additives. That said, you can and should serve it to your taste.
The difference between cold brew and Kyoto-style slow-drip coffee is the brewing style. Traditional cold brew is an immersion method – the coffee grounds steep in cold water. Kyoto cold brew is an infusion method – fresh cold water continuously drips through the grounds. Immersion brewing yields a smooth brew but muddies a coffee’s “high” notes, muting the acids and brighter flavors (3).
References
- Kasperowicz, M. (2019, September 13). A Brief History of ColdBrew Coffee. Retrieved from https://www.drinktrade.com/blog/education/cold-brew-coffee-history
- Brown, A. (2021, November 15). How much caffeine is in cold brew? Retrieved from https://perfectdailygrind.com/2021/11/how-much-caffeine-is-in-cold-brew-coffee/
- Boydell, Hazel. (2018, October 10). ColdBrew Coffee: Different Brewing Methods Compared. Retrieved from https://perfectdailygrind.com/2018/10/brew-methods-compared-how-should-you-make-cold-brew-coffee/
