Most cold brew concentrate gets sold on the adventure stuff. Camping, 4WDs, road trips, blokes standing next to a rooftop tent looking pleased with themselves.
Fair enough, we do that too. But the bulk of it gets used in a normal kitchen, on a normal Tuesday, by someone who's running late.
I've been making this stuff in a garage on the Sunshine Coast for about two years. This is the practical guide: the serve size, finding your ratio, where the bag lives, how long it lasts and what to order. If you're after ideas for what to actually make with it, I've written that up separately.
The Only Number You Need: 50ml
One serve is 50ml of concentrate. Everything else hangs off that.
A 1L bag is 20 serves. A 2L bag is 40 serves. Once you know roughly how many coffees your household drinks a day, you can work out what to order in about five seconds and you'll be right.
You don't need to measure it forever, either. Pour 50ml into your usual cup once, have a look at where it sits, and after that you're eyeballing it like everyone else.
How I Make It On A Weekday Morning
One part concentrate, two parts cold water. Ice if I've got it.
That's the whole thing. Black, cold, about fifteen seconds start to finish. It's the least impressive coffee routine you'll ever read and it's the one I've had for two years, and I make the stuff for a living.
If you want milk, use milk. If you want it hot, use hot water instead of cold. Same 50ml, same bag.
Find Your Ratio, Then Stop Thinking About It
Here's the thing almost nobody tells you when they sell you concentrate.
Nearly every complaint I get is a ratio problem wearing a costume. Too strong, too weak, too bitter, doesn't taste like the café, tastes different to my mate's. It's almost never a bad bag. It's that everyone's taste is genuinely different and you've been handed someone else's number.
The ratio printed on the bag is a starting point. It is not an instruction.
So run a few trials in your first week. It takes four cups and then you've got it for good.
The Four-Cup Method
- Cup one: 1 part concentrate to 3 parts water. The gentle end.
- Cup two: 1 part to 2 parts water. Where I sit.
- Cup three: 1 part to 2 parts milk. Richer, closer to an iced latte.
- Cup four: whichever of those you liked, nudged slightly stronger or weaker.
Write the winner on the fridge or in your phone. You will absolutely forget otherwise, and then you're back to guessing on Monday morning.
Where The Bag Lives In A Real Kitchen
Unopened, it can sit in the cupboard. Once it's open, it goes in the fridge and stays there.
We also added a cap to the tap, and I'll be honest about why: that came after launch, because people were getting the odd drip after pouring. It wasn't a feature I dreamed up on a whiteboard, it was customers mentioning a small annoying thing and us fixing it. Cap on after you pour, no drips down the fridge door.
The bag itself squashes down as you use it, which is the bit a bottle can't do. It goes in the door, or down the side, or in whatever awkward gap is left. As you drink it, it takes up less room instead of the same room.
The Household Problem This Actually Solves
This is the reason I made a concentrate instead of a ready-to-drink milk coffee, and it took me a while to explain it properly.
A pre-mixed milk coffee is one person's taste, decided in a factory, and everyone in the house has to live with it. Somebody's always finding it too sweet, too milky, or not strong enough.
Concentrate doesn't do that. Same bag: one person has it black over ice, one has it with full cream milk, one has it hot, one puts it in a protein shake before the gym, and the teenager uses about four times as much milk as anyone else. Nobody compromises and you don't need a second product in the fridge.
One bag, everyone builds their own.
Weekdays Versus Weekends
I'm not going to tell you to throw out your espresso machine. I sell coffee beans as well as concentrate, so that'd be a strange argument for me to make.
The pattern I see from customers over and over is concentrate on weekdays, beans on weekends.
Weekday coffee is a job. You're late, the kids are up, you've got a commute, and you want a good coffee in fifteen seconds without grinding, tamping, steaming and then cleaning something. Concentrate wins that comfortably.
Weekend coffee is a hobby. You've got time, you want the ritual, you want to fuss with it. That's what the machine and the beans are for.
Two different jobs. Most people end up doing both, and I reckon that's the right answer.
The Accessibility Bit I Didn't Plan For
The feedback that's surprised me most in two years has come from people with health conditions and disabilities.
Pulling a tap is the entire action. No grinder, no scales, no plunger, no kettle, no lifting a full glass jug and pouring it at an angle, no lid to twist off, no heat involved at any point. One hand, minimal grip strength, done.
I designed the bag because glass breaks at campsites. It turned out to be the easiest way to make a coffee for a lot of people at home, and that's probably the feedback I'm proudest of.
How Long It Lasts And What To Order
Shelf life, straight up:
- Unopened, about a year in the cupboard. No fridge needed until you open it.
- Once opened, roughly three to six weeks in the fridge.
That year in the cupboard is the bit that surprises people. Most assume cold brew is a fresh product that dies in a week, so they never think to keep a spare. You can.
For sizing, work off the 50ml serve. Two people having one coffee a day will get through a 2L in about a fortnight.
That's also why the subscription runs the way it does, every two weeks, monthly, or every two months:
- Two people, one coffee each a day: fortnightly.
- One person, one a day: monthly.
- Occasional drinker or a weekend-only thing: every two months.
Pick the one that matches your house and stop thinking about it. If you'd rather not commit to a schedule, the multi-bag value packs do the same job.
What It Costs Per Cup
Home use is where cost per serve really shows up, because it's the same fridge and the same routine every week.
- 1L bag, $32.95, 20 serves: about $1.65 a coffee.
- 2L bag, $54.95, 40 serves: about $1.37 a coffee.
- 1L + 2L pack, $79.95, 60 serves: about $1.33 a coffee.
- 2 x 2L pack, $99.95, 80 serves: about $1.25 a coffee.
Against six bucks at a café, or four-something for a can out of a servo fridge on the way to work.
Nearly everyone's first order is a 1L, because they're testing whether it's any good. The second order is almost always bigger, and the reason people give is the cost per serve.
Once You've Got The Basics Down
That's the mechanics sorted. Ratio, fridge, sizing, cost.
The fun part is what you actually make with it, and it goes a fair way past a black coffee. I've written up the full list of uses here, including a few customers invented before I did: What Should I Do With Cold Brew Concentrate?
Make it strong, make it weak, put milk in it, put tonic in it, put it in a protein shaker. It's your coffee and your kitchen.
It's not instant coffee. It's coffee in an instant.