The ColdPerk system at the SCA Expo in Houston in April. Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.
Commercial coffee equipment startup ColdPerk is rolling out a new batch brewing solution for cafes seeking espresso-strength concentrate called the Café 2.
With no wiring or heating elements, the gravity-fed Café 2 brewer is designed to provide a relatively affordable, low-barrier solution for businesses seeking in-house concentrates for any number of beverages.
The first model in ColdPerk’s forthcoming Café Series of equipment, the Café 2 is named for its 2-pound-maximum ground coffee capacity. The brewer is currently for sale for $1,300 directly through the ColdPerk website.
The company displayed the system in public for the first time at the SCA Expo in Houston in April (see all SCA Expo coverage here).
ColdPerk’s Randy Anderson. Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.
The concentrated brew it creates, which the company calls ColdSpro, can be crafted to a strength of up to 12 Brix, a dissolved solids content on par with traditional espresso. From there it can be consumed as a straight shot or mixed with water or other ingredients for hot or cold drinks.
Water added at the top of the unit showers down into a patent-pending part called the DWIP (Direct Water Interface Percolation) manifold, which rests atop a leveled column of pre-moistened ground coffee. The manifold additionally spreads an even flow of water into the coffee bed before liquid reaches a stainless-steel finishing filter at the bottom.
Beyond the coffee and water selections, users can control the overall water-to-coffee ratio, the grind, the pre-infusion time, and brewing water flow and temperature.
Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.
“It really is a whole system that’s integrated to get you there,” ColdPerk Executive Vice President Jeff Scott told Daily Coffee News. “We put a lot of time, money and testing into the physics and the fluid dynamics involved in this. A lot was spent researching, and a lot of money was spent patenting and trademarking so that we could protect it, because it really is quite unique from anything else that we’ve seen.”
On a polycarbonate stand with aluminum supports, The Café 2 takes the form of a modular cylindrical tower made mostly out of clear Tritan plastic. Its upper dispersion plate, DWIP manifold and final filter plate are all made from stainless steel.
Scott, a former global product manager for a consumer electronics company, was also a partial owner of a consumer home and garden products company. He came out of retirement to join the ColdPerk company leadership.
ColdPerk recommends pre-infusing dry grounds at a 4:1 water-to-coffee ratio in a separate container first, then loading the damp grounds into the Café 2 system. From a maximum of two pounds of coffee, The Café 2 yields up to 50 ounces of ColdSpro, enough for 25 typical beverages, in about eight to 10 minutes, according to the company.
The company said that the brewer’s extraction efficiency, as compared to typical full-immersion cold brew systems, requires up to 30% less ground coffee for the same finished product volume.
Daily Coffee News photo by Howard Bryman.
A pump-bottle receptacle carafe compatible with the Café 2 is slated to roll out later this year. The next machine in the Café Series, which is a larger version of the same essential system, is also on course to launch within 2025.
“There are people who are really struggling, that want to make their businesses work,” Randy Anderson, ColdPerk vice president of product strategy, told Daily Coffee News. “What we do not only saves thousands and thousands of dollars on an espresso machine purchase, and thousands on the costs of servicing and on the electricity those machines pull. It’s just a different way of approaching a coffee business that is far less expensive. Not just with our equipment, but in other ways.”
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.
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