While researching my article on X Café, I ran across the website of CoolBrew.
Here is an instant coffee to blow away the perceived notions about instant coffee.
For one thing, it’s perfectly drinkable. I made black, unsweetened cups with this extract from three of their different flavors. It suffers from slight “dilution tang” but you can easily hide that with sugar. However, the flavor of the coffee is wonderful. Strong, full bodied, and very smooth.
Would I use this to replace ground coffee? No.
The folks at CoolBrew know this. They’re not marketing it as such. While you can mix it with hot water and get yourself an instant cup of coffee, you can also mix it with other things and enjoy an endless array of coffee-flavored drinks, deserts, and dishes.
It’s very smart of them. They don’t push you to mix it with water. They suggest, up front, you mix it with milk. Or milk and ice. Or vodka and sugar (which gives you instant Kahlua). Or put it on ice cream as a zero calorie syrup — very yummy!
The packaging is smart … and funny, to someone who’s seen the same type of self-measuring bottle used for other kinds of products (I won’t go into details, but some of you will know what I mean). You keep the main cap closed, and open the cap on the measuring side. When you squeeze the bottle, the measuring side fills, and then you dump the measured amount into your cup. Very simple and easy.
CoolBrew gets its name from the way the coffee flavor is extracted, as opposed to them suggesting you drink it iced. Then again, it works in both ways, so it’s a very smart branding. They use no heat in the process, brewing the coffee very slowly using only cold water. From their website: “With cold water brewing, the most flavorful oils are extracted leaving behind the bitter acids.” I will personally vouch for that. My palate detected no bitterness or acidity — only a smooth, even coffee goodness.
What they produce is pure coffee with no additives or preservatives. This means that if you’re to look for it at your local grocery store, you’ll find it in the refrigerated section instead of over on the coffee aisle. If you get it directly from CoolBrew via their website, they ship it in an insulated package with a label stating to refrigerate immediately upon delivery.
Oh, and get this. This is cool. They partner with a company called JavaFlow, which makes a water cooler that dispenses cold water, hot water, and COFFEE. Hot fresh coffee directly from the water cooler! You can see the device here: JavaFlowLLC.com
Now that’s what I call a groovy brew.