In coming up on Christmas and sipping my third mug of Black Rifle coffee, I suddenly remembered a technique that may not still exist. (The post I did last year explained about the Black Rifle Coffee Company)

Anyway, many years ago, my brother gave me a “cold water coffee extract” kit for Christmas. I think that was when he was working at the still fairly unknown Whole Foods Market (yes, that one), and more importantly, he does not and never has been a coffee drinker. When he sent this he assured me his coffee drinking friends loved it. Alright, now to describe it. There was a glass carafe, a round plastic container that fit over the neck of the carafe, and a plug to fit in the container. The instructions were to put the plug into the container, place up to one pound of ground coffee into the container, fill it to whatever the marker was on the container with cold/room temperature water and allow it to “drip” around the plug for 8 hours or overnight. The extract it produced in the carafe was then to be refrigerated and used like instant coffee. I was understandably skeptical, but I do love my brother. My first try with it did not go well as somehow I didn’t set it up correctly and had a mess on the counter. I managed that part okay the next time. I don’t recall exactly how much extract was produced, but I think it was enough for about twenty mugs. Much to my surprise, it did make excellent coffee because it provided a smoother taste with no heat in the process of making the extract. On the other hand, it was a “process” to plan out.

I also don’t recall at what point I probably broke the carafe or lost part of the kit in a move, but whatever happened, I didn’t bother to find out how to replace it. Like I said, I don’t know if such a thing still exists, but my brother was correct about it.