ABSTRACT
Large commercial vendors, such as Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, have capitalized on this growing consumer demand with an array of ready-to-drink cold brew coffee beverages. Advertisers argue that the colder, slower brewing process improves flavor, aroma, and the presence of bioactive compounds. Coffee, hot and cold brewed, is prepared by an aqueous extraction process. In both types of brewing, various compounds diffuse out of the coffee grounds and into the water, imbuing it with the characteristic taste, aroma, and color of coffee. Temperature often significantly influences the solubility of compounds in water, especially flavor compounds, so brewing temperature may result in significantly different chemical compositions between hot and the cold brewed coffees. The longer brewing times needed for cold brew coffee may affect its final composition if the diffusion of compounds across the grind matrix is a kinetically limiting phenomenon.
