Hot goes cold

The heat is most definitely off when it comes to tea

and coffee. Laura Gelder finds out why

Aside from water, tea and coffee are the most universally drunk beverages on the planet, so it’s no surprise they're constantly being reinvented. Just offering English breakfast tea is laughable in 2018 – when green tea, fruit tea, herbal tea, even fermented tea are demanding attention. And the overcomplicated coffee market is becoming the butt of jokes – with fast-food chain McDonalds even poking fun at this in its latest UK advert, showing customers being bamboozled by baristas. Change is in the air, and lately it seems it's temperature that’s changing.

Going cold has long been a way for coffee outlets to attract the younger market – particularly with sweet frappuccinos and quirky combinations. According to F&B trends analyst Mintel, nearly a quarter of coffee menu items were cold by 2015 (up from 18% in 2009), and 66% of US millennials drink iced coffee compared to 34% of the older GenX.

A view to cold brew

Millennials love artisan too and until recently it was hot, rather than cold coffee which dominated this market. Since cold coffee has traditionally been mostly brewed hot and then served over ice, it made for a bitter taste, best diluted with cream and sugar.

Now cold brew is the latest coffee craze. It’s made from coffee grounds slowly soaked in roomtemperature water for up to 24-hours, producing a concentrated essence which is then diluted with more water and served chilled for a naturally sweeter taste. It’s the craft beer of the coffee world and has cool packaging to match. Mintel’s report shows that in cold brew’s biggest market, the US, this sub-segment grew