Every summer, coffee shops around town try to one-up previous seasons, and each other, with trendy, pretentious new variations on iced coffee — from single origin to New Orleans to cold brew. This year is no different, though it is more dramatic.
The icy java du jour is a frothy, bubbly nitrogen cold brew, and cafes from Harlem to Brooklyn have installed eye-catching nitro taps to pour the stuff.
Not to be mistaken for plain old cold brew (how 2014!) poured from a tap, it’s cold-brew coffee infused with nitrogen gas and released through a special, pressurized valve. A full cup, which is served over ice or straight up, looks less like a conventional cold coffee and more like a glass of Guinness. It tastes significantly smoother and richer than your average iced joe.
“Everyone serves cold brew,” says Erin Williams, the manager at Filtered (1616 Amsterdam Ave.), a new uptown coffee shop that recently installed a Stumptown nitrogen tap. “But this changes the game.”
Portland-based coffee roaster Stumptown, which has locations in the West Village (30 W. Eighth St.) and at the Ace Hotel (18 W. 29th St.), is driving the trend, supplying many coffee shops (both its own and others) around New York City with kegs of the stuff. Stumptown director of cold-brew operations Diane Aylsworth says part of the appeal is the look.
“If you think about the way latte art has increased the popularity of espresso,” she says, “the nitro cascade gives you the same type of visual experience.”
Bars and restaurants, not just coffee spots, are getting in on the trend. Putnam’s Pub and Cooker (419 Myrtle Ave., Clinton Hill) installed a nitrogen tap last month, and the hot boat bar Grand Banks in Tribeca (Pier 25 at Hudson River Park) also put one in for the summer.
“We have limited space to prepare things, so this works well for us,” says Alex Pincus, co-owner of Grand Banks. “And it’s surprisingly delicious.”
But java junkies say the appeal isn’t just the drink’s Instagram-ready look. Sadie Drazewski, the general manager of Plowshares Coffee (2730 Broadway) on the Upper West Side, where they roast their own beans upstate to make nitro cold brew in-house, says it’s the drink’s “creamy mouth feel” that makes it a “delicious experience.”
Jim Munson, managing director of Brooklyn Roasting Company, which has a tap at its Flatiron location (50 W. 23rd St.), waxes even more poetically. He says that the nitrogen infusion means drinkers taste “less acid” and enjoy an “effervescent . . . sparkle” on the tongue. The drink has been so popular at BRC’s Flatiron location that he plans to install taps at their three Brooklyn cafes, as well.
And the frothy drink packs plenty of caffeine, thanks to a lengthy filtering process that makes it extra potent.
“The first time I tried it, it gave me more of a boost,” says Rana Abu-Ghazala, 30, a fashion merchandising manager and recent nitro-cold-brew convert. “I would call it cold brew 2.0.”