Now You Can Get Starbucks Cold Brew All Over the U.S.

Photo courtesy of Starbucks

After a successful roll-out in stores across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest, Starbucks announced Tuesday that it’s adding cold brew as a permanent menu item at all its North American stores.

If you haven’t tried it yet, it’s a distinctly different product from Starbucks’s iced coffee, which has been offered nationally for years. The iced coffee, which is hot-brewed at double strength, refrigerated, and then poured over ice, has a bitter, nearly burnt flavor on the finish. But the cold brew, which Yahoo Food sampled last week, is smooth, chocolatey, and full-bodied. This is due to the 20-hour steeping period, in which water absorbs the flavor of the coffee grounds without ever being heated.

The cold brew is deceptively labor-intensive. Starbucks reps explained how baristas make it: They must first grind the coffee to a specific coarseness, which differs from the grind used for iced coffee; pour a very precise amount of water into the grounds in a manner that creates a “bloom;” take care to mark the exact time that water was added, as to prevent over or under-brewing; then carefully drain the grounds of the resulting cold brew. In all, the introduction of cold brew to the Starbucks menu required two years of development.

All this hard work means cold brew is available in more limited quantities compared to other offerings and it carries a higher price tag. At a New York City Starbucks in Times Square, for example, a grande cold brew costs $3.25 compared to $2.65 for a grande iced coffee.

Cold brew is just the most recent in a string of Starbucks offerings inspired by so-called “third wave” coffee, which refers to modern efforts to produce high-end coffee. In the last year alone, Starbucks unveiled a state-of-the-art roastery and tasting room in Seattle, a subscription service for its Reserve line of premium coffees, and the “flat white,” a coffee drink made with espresso and steamed milk.

“Over the past six to seven months, we’ve had a lot of offerings that are more [like] craft service,” a Starbucks rep told us. But will the craft coffee crowd buy it? Starbucks thinks cold brew may warrant their praise. The proof may be in how it’s served: without sugar. Its flavor “can stand on its own,” she said.

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Will you try Starbucks’s new cold brew? Tell us below!