To anyone who works in the coffee industry — or even spends time in a café on a regular basis — calling iced coffee a popular beverage is quite the understatement.

Between April and June of this year, according to Starbucks, 75 percent of the chain’s beverage sales came from iced drinks—and that number isn’t far off for the independent cafés we work with either. But summers can be maddening for café owners trying to keep up with the demand for cold coffee: the need to check the next day’s forecast to anticipate demand, the fear of running out of iced coffee too early in the day, plus the perpetual considerations of labor and inventory. 



In the decade we’ve been sourcing, roasting, and consulting for specialty coffee shop owners, we’ve encountered every challenge under the sun trying to keep up with the demand for iced coffee. Cold brew, popularized in the late aughts by Blue Bottle’s take on the New Orleans brewing style, has plenty of mass appeal: it’s a hit with drinkers who prefer lower acidity, syrupy smoothness, high caffeine content, and a bit of cultural cachet. But it also takes an enormous amount of time, labor, and roasted coffee to make, and tends to be treated as an afterthought by baristas brewing it at the end of a long shift, using stale coffee to move through inventory that didn’t get used for espresso or filter coffee.   

Flash brew, another iced coffee brewing method, tends to be favored by specialty coffee drinkers because it can preserve the complex acidity of high-quality coffees. But flash brewing takes a toll on already overworked ice machines, and requires an abundance of hard-to-come-by fridge space for storage after brewing.

With all that in mind, we set out to do cold coffee a little differently. We’re firm believers that a better beverage always starts with sourcing and roasting better coffee. We tasted coffee from every partner we have around the globe, specifically for our cold brew—and found a winning combination in coffees from Kenya Baragwi and Ethiopia Nansebo Refisa. Having sourced from these regions for nearly ten years, we’d already developed an intimate knowledge of local terroir, flavor profiles, and optimal buying practices for every player on the field. 



In partnership with BKON, we then started brewing and packaging our cold brew with the utmost precision. Instead of traditional kegs, we packaged it in shelf-stable, recyclable, three-gallon bag-in-boxes (also known as BiBs). Paired with simple equipment, it can be connected easily to dispense delicious, ready-to-drink cold brew or nitro cold brew. The result is a supremely drinkable, elegantly balanced beverage you can feel good about drinking—while also being easier to store and serve. 

We see the future of cold coffee trending in this direction: more portable and convenient for the café operator, more delicious and satisfying for the consumer, and ultimately more reliable for all parties involved. As roasters, we have the opportunity to put more attention into cold brew than a busy café might: with careful sourcing, meticulous roasting, and precise brewing, we’re able to treat cold brew with as much consideration as any of our other whole-bean offerings, and to take the guesswork out of the equation for café owners and customers seeking a consistent, high-quality beverage.



This summer, we expanded our cold brew offerings to include two new shelf-stable formats: Parlor Cold Brew on Tap and Parlor Cold Brew cans. We hope these formats make it even more convenient for you to enjoy expertly crafted cold brew year-round, whether in a café, at the office, or in the comfort of your own home. We invite you to come try it at the New York Coffee Festival this October, at the Parlor Coffee booth on the first floor.


About Parlor Coffee

Parlor Coffee was founded in 2012 with an espresso machine in the back of a barbershop and a dream to roast New York's finest coffee. They advocate for producers and foster transparent relationships with the same commitment that drives their pursuit of consistency in roasting excellence.