In the early 2000s, cold brew coffee was a niche item, mostly known by coffee enthusiasts who went to specialty coffee shops or searched online for ways to make it at home.
After hours of rigorous testing, brewing, and drinking, here are the best cold brewers to make the perfect cup at home:
1. Hario Mizudashi Cold Brew Coffee Pot
This carafe produces 1 liter (about 4 1/4 cups) of strong coffee in just eight hours. It was easy to assemble, brewed quickly, and looked good doing it. Plus, it was the second most affordable of the options we looked at.
The Mizudashi coffee maker comes in a slim, cheaply made cardboard rectangle. The simple but precise directions, with helpful graphics, tell you everything you need to know to make coffee with it. If you’re more touch-and-go with your coffee, you can just fill the filter with grounds to the top of the mesh, place the filter back into the carafe, and slowly pour filtered water over the grounds until the carafe is full.
This carafe is tall and slender, making it perfect for display on any table. It’s also compact enough to fit on most kitchen counters or in cabinets.
2. OXO Brew Compact Cold Brew Coffee Maker
The OXO Compact Cold Brew Coffee Maker is the best cold brew coffee maker because it consistently makes great cold brew coffee, and it is very easy to use. It is also compact, so it takes up less space, and it comes with an attractive glass carafe for serving.
This brewer is best for people who drink a small amount of cold brew each day and need a simple, easy-to-use machine. It’s also a good choice for people who have limited counter space and want a brewer that consistently produces good results.
3. Toddy Cold Brew System
The Toddy Cold Brew System is as ubiquitous in cafes as espresso machines and makes a liter of cold brew. It uses both a paper filter and a felt disc to produce an ultra clean cup that’s nuanced and smooth and can hold up well to the additions of milk and sugar. Although it’s a little finicky to use, once you get the hang of it, the Toddy cold brewer makes a superb beverage.
The best way to make coffee without any soot or coffee particles is to use a cold brew coffee maker. This coffee maker is perfect for making large amounts of cold brew coffee. You can use it to closely mimic the professional brewing techniques used by your local coffee shops.
4. Ovalware Airtight RJ3 Cold Brew Maker
Although it wasn’t the top pick, the Ovalware Airtight RJ3 Cold Brew Maker was still a good choice. It’s easy to use and looks good, but the glass handle makes it feel a bit fragile and less user-friendly.
The handle on the glass carafe is quite fragile and we worry that it might break over time if the coffee maker is used frequently or by kids or pets. The coffee maker has a 1-liter capacity and comes with an all-glass carafe and an all steel filter.
5. Takeya Cold Brew Iced Coffee Maker
This coffee maker is great for making cold brew and is very easy to take with you on the go.
The Takeya cold brew maker is neither expensive nor fragile, making it ideal for taking with you wherever you want a refreshing cold coffee drink.
The all-plastic construction makes this brewer less high-end than some of the others; it can leak if you aren’t careful when you turn it on its side for brewing. 1.8-liter capacity.
6. County Line Kitchen Cold Brew Coffee Maker
This coffee maker was a clear standout.
This product is essentially a Mason jar with a screw-on lid, handle and pop-up spout. It is very easy to set up, pour and clean. While the County Line Kitchen model made 1.75 liters of brew with little mess or labor, it did not score as high in aesthetics. The product’s straightforward, rustic design also extends to the packaging and directions; when we read the brochure that comes with the County Line Kitchen model, it felt like something that might be sold in the gift store of a roadside country diner. This product is not for everyone due to its design. However, it gets an honorable mention for its function.
7. The Oxo Good Grips Cold Brew Coffee Maker
The Oxo Good Grips nearly makes perfect cold brew, though the entire process seems like a chemistry experiment. There is no measuring on the brewing container, so you have to use the glass carafe to measure the amount of coffee grounds and water you use. The plastic perforated cover goes on the container of grounds and you pour water through it, activating a “rainmaker” effect that is supposed to distribute the water evenly over the grounds.
After letting the grounds steep in the container for 12 to 24 hours, you place the container on top of a measurer that has a switch to release the brew, allowing it to slowly drain into the carafe. Once the coffee concentrate has drained into the carafe, you can move the plastic pieces of this device aside, top the carafe with a plastic, sealable lid and store the nice-looking carafe in the refrigerator.
8. The Coffee Gator French Press
You can make a delicious cup of cold brew without special equipment, using things you already have. We tried a few brewers that use mesh filters, but I found I could get a really rich and full-bodied cup by using my French press with a few simple hacks. This is good for people who don’t want to purchase a new brewer and who don’t mind a little extra work.
9. The KitchenAid Brew Coffee Maker
The KitchenAid model scored well for its excellent, very strong cold brew, but lost points for its higher price tag, more cumbersome assembly, and slightly more complicated brewing process. There are four components to assemble, which can make it feel more intimidating out of the box. However, once we read the directions and did put it all together, this one was fairly turnkey. Fill a stainless steel steeping bucket with grounds, place it inside the brew jar and fill the whole thing with water. The next morning, or 12 hours later, remove the steeping bucket, and 28 ounces of cold brew will be in a solid square glass jar, with a tap for easy, spill-proof dispensing and a handle for easily moving the jar from counter to refrigerator and back again.
10. Bruer Cold Drip System
This coffee brewer comes with a lot of extra features that may be either good or bad depending on the person. It comes in a cardboard cylinder that could be mistaken for a fancy glass or a wooden toy. There are six pieces to the brewer, including glass, silicon, and metal. The design makes it look like an industrial installation.
To use this coffee maker, you add ground coffee, then slowly add a bit of water to bloom the grounds. Next, add the remaining water and finally adjust the drip valve to let the water drip through the coffee at a rate of about one drip per second. So, this coffee maker brews the coffee very slowly, one drip at a time, over about six hours. Watching it do its magic is mesmerizing and many users will love it for that reason. Although it does make an excellent cup of cold brew, not everyone will want to go through all this processing just to get a cup of coffee.
11. Bodum Bean Cold Brew Coffee Maker
This device can be used like a French press, where the grounds are pushed to the bottom of the chamber once the brewing is done. In order to completely separate the grounds from the cold brew, the coffee needs to be transferred to another container, which means having an extra vessel on hand. Although it performs well, we suggest getting the Coffee Gator French Press Coffee Maker instead. It operates in the same way but is also insulated, which makes it just as good for hot coffee.
12. The Dash Cold Brew Coffee Maker
Unlike any other machine we tested, the Dash Cold Brew Coffee Maker brews cold coffee in five to 15 minutes, depending on how much time you have. This machine has multiple parts, and plugs into an outlet. The first time we tested it, we didn’t secure the filter properly and coffee liquid began spewing all over the countertop.
It’s similar to a stovetop percolator in that you pour water into the top and it runs through the grounds and into the bottom. This process takes 5-15 minutes and creates cold brew coffee. It’s easy to use once you get it set up, but it does take some patience.
What Is Cold Brew?
Cold brew coffee is unique because it is brewed slowly, usually over a period of 12 to 24 hours, using cold or room-temperature water. The coffee is then strained and can be served diluted with water or straight up.
The Testing
The cold brewers I tested can generally be classified into one of three categories: those that allow water and ground coffee to interact freely, those with a glass carafe and a cone-shaped basket to hold grounds, and those that use a slow-drip brewing method.
After testing all the samples, the brewers who made the best cups of coffee won. I made coffee on each brewer and then labeled them with a number so I wouldn’t know which was which. My partner, Jesse, diluted each sample and then we randomly arranged them. We tested the first two batches and then brought in another friend to test the final batch with us. Everyone recorded their impressions and then we talked about the results.
As a control, I got cold brew from a local shop and picked up a bottle of ready-made cold brew to test alongside the samples.
I eliminated my least favorite brewers after putting each of them through two rounds of randomized testing. I then designed a third test, broken up into two parts. Finally, I considered usability and ease of cleaning.