Draft latte and cold-brew: It's iced coffee's gourmet moment

When La Colombe first opened 21 years ago, co-owner Todd Carmichael was puzzled by customers who would order iced coffee. But, with a disdainful shrug, he'd serve them a red-eye over ice.

Slowly, though, his outlook changed - to the point where he now believes his newest creation, cold latte by the can, may be his greatest accomplishment.

"I'm more proud of this than everything else combined," said Carmichael, who has opened 12 cafés, starred in a Travel Channel docu-series, and helped revive the Haitian coffee industry. "Cold coffee, even though it seems like it should be finished, is in its infancy. It's just getting started."

La Colombe may be the largest area roaster to rethink iced coffee, but it's not the only one: Cold coffee's gourmet moment has officially arrived.

Local roasters are installing draft lines and pouring nitrogen-infused coffee with creamy effervescence along the lines of Guinness. They're selling cold brew by the bottle and growler, and equipping cargo tricycles with kegs of the stuff. They're advertising coffee that's been small-batch-brewed for 12, 18 or 24 hours, calling to mind the language applied to aged whiskey or hopped ales. They're inventing coffee drinks mixed with tonic, ice cream and beer.

And, of course, they're debating: What's innovation and what's just a gimmick, what's perfectly steeped cold brew and what's merely old coffee.

For Drew Crockett, chief executive of HubBub Coffee, it's a long-overdue conversation.

"Coffee has been traditionally sourced, tasted, evaluated and talked about from the perspective of hot coffee," he said. "Cold coffee has been kind of left behind. It's fallen into this catchall category of iced coffee. What that actually means is a whole range of things: It could be cold brew in some shops. It could be yesterday's coffee put in the refrigerator at others."

The adoption of cold brew (even by the likes of Starbucks) has started to change that.

Fans say it's a totally different drink than iced coffee. It's less acidic, they argue, it has a smooth flavor, it's higher in caffeine, and it keeps longer.

It's become something of an art. For example, Square One Coffee starts with a splash of hot water for some acidity and complexity, then cold brews for 18 hours. At Rival Brothers, the Whistle & Cuss espresso blend is steeped 24 hours. HubBub has a "proprietary way of doing it," Crockett said: coffee steeped for a specified amount of time between 12 and 24 hours.

The way consumers could already choose between a batch-brewed hot coffee, a single-origin pour-over, or an Americano, they can now walk into a cafe and order a cold coffee of their preferred brewing method.

Greenstreet Coffee, for example, offers regular cold brew (steeped eight to 12 hours), as well as cold coffee made on a Kyoto tower - a device that drips cold water over grounds for 18 hours.

"It has a whiskey-like, oaky taste," manager Jeremy Behne said. But he can only get about 20 cups of Kyoto-style coffee a day. A 12-ounce cup of it is pricey at $4, so Behne didn't intend to offer a 16-ounce size. "Then, people kept asking for it, so we had to put a price on it." It's $6, he said, and it sells.

Cold coffee has become a showpiece, the way an espresso machine was before it. At Peddler Coffee, newly opened near Logan Square, a signature offering is multiple, single-origin Kyoto-style coffees, each extracted a drip at a time over four hours.

For some in the industry, though, the cold-brew fervor is just a fad.

"For us, it's always iced coffee"- concentrated hot coffee, brewed over ice - not cold brew, said Mark Corpus, of Reanimator Coffee. "Freshness trumps what I would describe as a gimmicky buzzword, right now. We have a lot of people that come in and ask for 'cold brew.' " His staff explain their "iced coffee" is even better.

"You're able to taste the nuance of the coffee," he said. It's a common complaint that all cold brew tastes basically the same.

Aaron Ultimo takes a similar approach at his South Philadelphia cafés.

His beef with cold brew? The eight-hour-plus brewing time. "It's essentially old coffee, and you cannot change that fact," he said. "It's stale."

Still, cold-brew adherents are doubling down.

Many cafés are putting cold-brew on tap: It's eye-catching, and it's quick and easy to pour.

New taps dispensing Pure Black, La Colombe's cold brew, were installed over the past few weeks at La Colombe cafés in Philadelphia and other cities. Customers can also opt for Pure Latte - that feat of molecular gastronomy that's available now on draft at the cafés and, soon, by the can at retailers nationwide. (It required 17 patents, but it's actually frothy when you crack it open, thanks to a valve inside that releases nitrous oxide). Or, they can split the difference with a Black-and-Tan.

Others are focused on nitrogen-infused cold-brew variations, poured with a Guinness tap to generate a frothy head and creamy mouth-feel.

Justin Katz, operations manager at Philadelphia Extract Company in Bensalem, began tinkering with a coffee "nitronator" 18 months ago at a client's request. Now, he has about a dozen café accounts.

That's even though cafés must spend about $40 a week to rent the equipment - and despite the fact that the effervescence in a glass of nitro cold brew generally dissipates after five minutes or so.

"Frankly, it's still not quite right," acknowledged Jonathan Adams, of Rival Brothers, about his own nitro offering produced on Katz's gear. He'd like to find a way to make the drink more stable, perhaps with carbonation.

Crockett said nitro is just the start. To him, cold brew is like espresso: It can serve as the base of a range of specialty beverages. He's developing such a menu now.

So is Adams, of Rival Brothers, who likes cold brew with a splash of Fentiman's Cherrytree Cola (order a "Brown Bull" at his cafe to try it yourself).

At Square One, they're serving nitro coffee floats with Little Baby's Brown Butter Brawler ice cream, and working with Yard's Brewery on a coffee-and-beer drink. They also have an espresso-and-tonic drink in the works.

Jess Steffy, co-owner of Square One, said these offerings reflect what's next for the craft coffee movement: "With nitro cold brew, signature beverages, cocktails using coffee, I think we're finally coming into our own as an industry."

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Greenstreet Coffee

(1101 Spruce St., 610-504-3934)

Cold-brewed coffee and nitrogenated cold brew are available on draft, (as is iced chai tea). Or, go for the premium Kyoto-style dripped cold coffee.

HubBub Coffee

(1717 Arch St., 215-665-1982; 3736 Spruce St., 215-387-0700; 232 N. Radnor Chester Road, Radnor, 610-687-1710)

Cold-brew coffee is available by the glass or growler and on draft at tricycles HubBub is sending out on the town. There's also nitrogenated cold brew here.

Joe Coffee

(1845 Walnut St., 215-278-2454; 3200 Chestnut St., 215-240-4577)

This New York transplant offers regular iced coffee and cold brew, along with regular iced lattes and cold-brew lattes, made with cold-brew concentrate instead of espresso. A summer specialty is the Shakedown: a double shot of espresso with simple syrup and milk shaken and poured over ice.

La Colombe

(1335 Frankford Ave., 267-479-1600; 100 S. Independence Mall W., 267-479-1650; 1414 S. Penn Square, 215-977-7770; 130 S. 19th St., 215-563-0860)

Get Pure Black - La Colombe's cold brew - on draft, or go for the Pure Latte, lightly foamed through the magic of nitrous oxide. But go early: The drafts often sell out by 2 p.m. (Their old-fashioned ice coffee, which comes with a shot of espresso, is still a favorite.)

Peddler Coffee

(2100 Spring St., no phone)

Order single-origin coffees cold-brewed on the Kyoto dripper. Or, go for a single-origin "Espresso on the Rocks," served over ice in a rocks glass.

Rival Bros. Coffee

(2400 Lombard St., no phone)

Choose from still or nitrogenated draft cold brew, or opt for Japanese-style flash-brewing for the single-origin iced coffee of your choosing. Or, go for the Brown Bull - cold brew topped with Fentiman's Cherrytree Cola.

Reanimator Coffee

(310 Master St., 267-758-6264; 1523 E. Susquehanna Ave., 215-425-5805)

No cold brew here, just a double concentrated hot coffee that's been "Japanese flash-brewed" over ice and chilled. Or, go for the iced mini mocha, made with ice, chocolate and espresso, but not extra sugar.

Square One Coffee

(249 S. 13th St., 267-758-6352)

Get the Velvet Hammer - cold brew on nitro - or regular cold brew on draft. Ask the baristas to pour you what they're having: tonic with a shot of espresso. Or, go for the Velvet Hammer float with a scoop of Little Baby's ice cream - dairy or lactose-free.

Ultimo Coffee

(2149 Catharine St., 215-545-3565; 1900 S. 15th St., 215-339-5177)

Aaron Ultimo stands by the Japanese flash-brewing method: He brews a double-concentrated batch of hot coffee in a French press and then pours it over ice. If that's not your thing, stop in anyway: They're doing affogatos - espresso with a scoop of Little Baby's ice cream - in regular and dairy-free varieties for the rest of the summer.

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@samanthamelamed