Cold brew’s origins date back to a time long before Brooklyn coffee shops installed floating shelves, hung pothos plants, and employed a generation of tattooed baristas. The first mention of cold brew appears in 17th century Japan, where tea was cold-brewed in a technique called mizudashi. As the story goes, when the Dutch arrived in Japan in 1600, they applied that method to coffee, and cold brew was born.
Four centuries later, cold brew exploded in popularity in the US during the third-wave coffee movement of the 2010s, when highlighting coffee beans’ origins and tasting subtle notes like “unripe berry” and “burnt caramel” became important to more drinkers. Coffee nerdery became cool. People loved cold brew for its smooth, less acidic flavor—and also for its high caffeine content. Soon there was nitro cold brew, coffee infused with nitrogen for a creamier texture, and it wasn’t long before major retailers began stocking cold brew on their shelves.
In grocery stores now, cold brew options stretch as far as the eye can see. Most of them have the same two ingredients—water and coffee—but there’s still a lot of flavor variations between brands. This one might be all bitterness; that one might have some kind of alien sweetness. That’s why we put eight nationally available cold brews through a blind taste test to find the absolute best.
Four were ready to drink, and the rest were concentrates that we diluted according to their package instructions. We tried them black, with no creamer or sweetener, over ice. We wanted a cold brew that had a bright acidity that didn’t overpower the fruity, roasty, toasty notes. We also wanted to make sure our cold brew wasn’t too watery, and that it had a tannic, wake-you-up aroma.
It was a jittery 35 minutes, but in the end, one cold brew reigned supreme.
Photograph by Bre Furlong
Califia Farms Pure Black Medium Roast Cold Brew
What’s inside: In small print underneath the nutritional data, Califia boasts that its coffee is Rainforest Alliance Certified. That means the beans come from farms that pay their workers a fair wage and prioritize sustainability, two huge issues in the coffee farming and production industries.
The verdict: Initial sniffs suggested that Califia might have a strong showing—dare I say its aroma made our jaws ache in anticipation—but first sips proved otherwise. There was a strange taste, like a paper cup. “This tastes like the coffee filter,” senior service editor Kelsey Jane Youngman declared. That papery taste is often a result of oxidized coffee beans during the cold-brew production process.
Starbucks Black Unsweetened Cold Brew Coffee
What’s inside: The ingredients list here is just water and coffee, like most other cold brews. Starbucks’ cold brew packaging boasts “ethical sourcing standards,” which, per the label, “positively impact the lives and livelihoods of coffee farmers and their communities.” Despite these claims, a lawsuit alleges that Starbucks sources from farms that have committed human rights and labor violations.
The verdict: Malty flavor, balanced acid, mild bitterness—our tasters thought this coffee’s flavor was “fine.” Some got a sorta-sweet, artificial-vanilla vibe, but it wasn’t altogether unpleasant; there’s a reason Starbucks serves those vanilla lattes across the globe. If you’re a self-proclaimed caffeine fiend like us, you may prefer something stronger.
Photograph by Bre Furlong
Pop and Bottle Classic Coffee Super Concentrate
What’s inside: In addition to steeping time, the ratio of water to ground coffee influences how strong cold brew ends up. Concentrate is a different story; in a concentrate, the amount of water gets reduced, not unlike buying chicken bouillon paste instead of chicken stock. It means you can dilute the coffee to your preference, and you get more cups out of a smaller package.
The verdict: Pop and Bottle is almost as thick as syrup before it’s diluted. Senior cooking editor Emma Laperruque said it smells like unsweetened chocolate, and Kelsey likened it, less charitably, to coffee left at the bottom of the pot. That intense acrid aroma gave way to a chocolaty flavor—the fancy kind that’s so dark it starts to taste a little fruity. It was still more watery than we’d like; next time we’d dilute it less than the label recommends.
Photograph by Bre Furlong
Wandering Bear Straight Black Organic Cold Brew Coffee
What’s inside: Per its label, this coffee is made with Arabica beans from Peru, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Arabica is thought to be the first species of the coffee plant to be cultivated, and it’s one of the most popular beans used in coffee making today.
The verdict: Emma thought her cup of Wandering Bear smelled like a coffee shop—exactly as coffee should smell, really. Our tasters hemmed and hawed for a while, discussing the positives (a tart blueberry flavor, a lovely seize of bitterness) and the negatives (a sourness that recipe copy and production assistant Carly Westerfield described as “lactic sourness,” like in milk). In the end, everyone agreed that the balance could be better. If you like half-and-half in your coffee, Wandering Bear could be your cold brew match.
Photograph by Bre Furlong
Stok Un-Sweet Black Cold Brew Coffee
What’s inside: In addition to coffee and water, this cold brew includes “natural flavors.” The FDA definition of natural flavors is quite broad, which means that this could be pretty much anything, as long as it’s derived from a natural source like a plant or animal.
The verdict: Cold brew, our tasters said, should be complex and bitter, with a robust roasty flavor. But Stok was a little thin, and it had a sweetness that Emma described as “artificial vanilla.” Some tasters liked how that sweet flavor balanced the acid bitterness of the coffee, others felt it tasted more like a Starbucks Frappuccino. It wasn’t the bracing sip of cold brew that would get you through a 9 a.m. meeting, but it did remind us of those coffee drinks we used to buy at the mall circa 2004.
Photograph by Bre Furlong
Chameleon Black Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate
What’s inside: No surprises on Chameleon’s ingredients list, but one detail caught our eye—the coffee used to make this cold brew is “medium roast.” That means the beans are roasted at a lower temperature, for a shorter time, than in a dark roast. Those medium-roast beans will have more caffeine and more delicate flavors, but less body.
The verdict: “This smells amazing,” Emma swooned when she took a whiff of the Chameleon cold brew in her cup. Other tasters agreed, noting its cozy, first-bonfire-of-the-summer flavor. On first sips, we got a golden grassy flavor, like a pumpkin patch in fall. But those flavors were difficult to detect since the cold brew was watery. We diluted this concentrate in a 1:1 ratio, as instructed. For the rest of the bottle, we’d use a little less water to send those invigorating flavors straight to the moon.
Photograph by Bre Furlong
La Colombe Unsweetened Colombian Cold Brew
What’s inside: Water and coffee, once again. Messaging on the bottle also mentions that each 12-oz. serving contains 230 milligrams of caffeine. That’s about three times the amount of caffeine you’d find in a cup of hot coffee.
The verdict: La Colombe cold brew was another favorite for our testers. Positive marks started with the smell—caramel! molasses!—and continued into the actual tasting itself. Our tasters flipped over how smooth this cold brew was. There was no sting of tongue-clenching, mouth-drying acidity. But La Colombe still managed to retain a bracing bitterness to balance out its sunnier notes. We would happily sip this through a Krazy Straw on a hot summer afternoon, but there was one other brand that we loved even more.
Photograph by Bre Furlong
Stumptown Coffee Roasters Cold Brew Concentrate
What’s inside: Somehow, Stumptown’s cold brew contains even more caffeine than La Colombe’s. At 235 milligrams of caffeine per 10-oz. serving, that makes just over a full gram of caffeine per bottle. We can’t stress this enough, don’t drink the whole bottle in one sitting. Please.
The verdict: Stumptown has everything you want in a cold brew. The tannic aroma of juicy berries, a whoosh of toasty malt, and a smooth aftertaste that makes you crave your next sip. Commerce producer Alaina Chou said Stumptown was “the most complex” cold brew we tested. Those bright, tart flavors gave way to butterscotch that’s just short of burnt. Stumptown is the kind of cold brew that makes waking up early feel worth it, everyone agreed. “This tastes like the cold brew you’d spend seven dollars on at a coffee shop,” Carly said.