Our prayers have been answered: winter has finally loosened its icy grasp.
It's high time that our thoughts turned to warmer weather, and Starbucks has gone whole hog by ushering in shorts-and-t-shirt season with the new Toasted Coconut Cold Brew, its newest cold-brewed iced coffee concoction.
What Is Toasted Coconut Cold Brew?
You can't get more tropical than coconut with Starbucks' new cold-brewed coffee.
Providing some “serious tropical vacation vibes” according to Starbucks, the new beverage features the coffee chain's Nariño 70 blend, which is steeped long and slow to provide a smooth, sweet flavor devoid of the normal acidic bite of traditionally brewed coffee.
Building on that velvety flavor, Starbucks tops its new cold-brewed coffee off with a toasted coconut syrup with a hint of honey, providing sweet, caramelized flavors that will leave you feeling like you're lying on the beach.
The crowning glory is a float of coconut milk, providing a a feast for the eyes as well as a treat for the palate; the coconut milk provides a unique marbling effect as it drifts into the dark coffee.
No Stranger To Coconut
Starbucks loves pushing the envelope when it comes to flavors, but this isn't the first time it's used the sweet tang of coconut in its beverages.
The company says the flavor profile for the Toasted Coconut Cold Brew comes from jalao, a a coconut candy popular in the Dominican Republic, but Starbucks has used similar flavors in the past.
As far back as 2002, the Seattle-based coffee company debuted the Starbucks Mocha Coconut Frappuccino, which was brought back to the menu in 2015.
Not so coincidentally, coconut milk joined the menu alongside its other offerings for its dairy-free customers the same year. Then, 2016 saw the introduction of the Starbucks Iced Coconut Milk Mocha Macchiato.
This makes 2017, with the debut of the new Toasted Coconut Cold Brew on April 4th, the third year in a row the company has added a coconut-flavored beverage to its ever-changing menu.
It's a major boon for anyone looking for alternative flavors, as well as those that want to keep dairy in their diets to a minimum.
The Secret Of Cold-Brewed Coffee
Almost everyone enjoys a nice hot cup of Joe first thing in the morning. Even iced coffee traditionally starts life as a pot of traditional coffee, brewed hot in a manner of minutes and just simply poured over ice to cool it down.
Meanwhile, cold-brewed coffee comes to life in a completely different manner. Loose, coarse-ground coffee beans are steeped in water at an ice-cold temperature and left to sit for for at least 12 hours.
The painstaking process then involves carefully straining the grounds before serving – usually over ice – either black or with your favorite sweetener.
The characteristics of coffee brewed in this manner are vastly different than a regular cop of traditional brew.
In addition to the smoother, less bitter flavor profile, the caffeine content is significantly higher thanks to the fact it's been literally steeping for hours.
This makes waking up with a cold-brewed iced coffee in the morning a seriously eye-opening experience – one that's ideal for the hotter months ahead.
Save The Hassle For Home
Cold-brewed coffee is a serious time investment. You need a special coffee blend that's ideal for cold brewing, it needs to be ground coarsely, and it needs to be prepared in a suitable container overnight and strained before serving.
This makes cold brewing at home out of the comfort zone of only the most dedicated coffee hounds.
Thankfully, Starbucks has the answer. It's been providing cold-brewed coffee drinks for a while now, making it in small batches over the course of 20 hours for the ultimate in smoothness.
Letting the baristas at your local Starbucks do the work for you saves you a massive amount of time and energy that you can instead spend enjoying your signature drink.
The Summer's Pumpkin Spice
Starbucks is well-known for offering seasonal flavors, as anyone who counts down the days until the autumn-inspired Pumpkin Spice Latte is available once more.
Scuttlebutt says that the Toasted Coconut Cold Brew will be available at least through the rest of the spring into the summer, but there's no telling if it'll be taken off the menu once the weather turns more chilly once again.
Toasted Coconut Cold Brew Conclusion
While whole swathes of the United States are still digging out from a late winter that took its time dumping lots of snow across the country, the sweet, smooth flavors of honey and toasted coconut will likely make a perfect companion for those hot summer months.
Whether Toasted Coconut Cold Brew will become as beloved as its pumpkin-spiced cousin – and whether it will be back next year at around this time – will remain to be seen.
Making cold brew coffee at home is not that big a deal at all. You don’t need a “special” blend of coffee. Any coffee bean you can grind yourself is fine.