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Comment by marklyon | Hacker News Reader

I keep Kirkland canned Cold Brew stocked in my office. We have great hot options at work, but not iced ones. But we do have ice. It's bitter, it's unsweetened, but it packs a good amount of caffeine and is incredibly convenient. Even took a case with me on a cruise.

I have enjoyed UCC in the past; It's good, but I prefer my coffee without sugar or cream. I didn't try any of the hot canned options while in Japan, but did absolutely love some of the choices for other products I found in various vending machines.

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UCC has had black unsweetened canned coffee for quite a while (UCC Black 無糖 sugarless).

Sugarless Japanese canned coffee tends to taste rough because it often includes some robusta beans, which are cheaper and more bitter-tasting. Which is why I prefer the less-sweet (微糖) variants, or with milk/creamer to balance the bitterness. The exceptions are the special cans advertising coffee from a specific country picked by some champion barista or other, which are better, but of course nowhere near as good as a freshly-brewed cup.

What's different about mass-produced coffee in Japan is that it leans heavily towards only mildly bitter coffee, not the hard bitter stuff you might get elsewhere. Convenience-store machine-brewed coffee is almost always pleasant and easy to drink unsweetened, which is not the case in many other countries. Heck, a few years ago the 7-11s here in Singapore brought in 7-11 Japan's coffee machines, but the beans they use here are far more bitter than the ones in Japan.

I agree about the rough taste in general. I've made it a habit to try as many different canned coffees as I can when visiting Japan (and every "black" coffee I saw), and looking back at my notes, I felt like "Premium BOSS Black" was quite good, and "UCC Black New Grounds Fruity Blend" and "UCC Black Wholly Brewed" were both decent, compared to most of the other black coffees.

I used to buy liters of Drink It Black (unsweetened black coffee) or Tasty Club (sweetened black coffee) which I chugged on the 203 bus that I took to Japanese school. Good times!

> t's bitter, it's unsweetened,

To me it seems like an important part of the experience. If it doesn't taste like death, it's not the real deal.

I’ve consumed many cans of UCC and it always tastes like someone tapped a cigarette into it. Is it just me?

I definitely think that something is very whack about about the Japanese canned coffees. I assumed it was some chemical process to get more use out of already used grounds or some flavor additive.

Finding good coffee in Japan, particularly cold brew/dutch coffee, was hard for me. Finding it at a cafe that doesn't also allow smoking was harder.

I'm still not sure if it was my lack of skill in finding coffee/cafes that I liked or if the coffee/coffee culture was different and not as good.

I found Taiwan and Korea both had high quality and familiar coffee, at least to the US perspective. They also had very nice cafes. Vietnam does great coffee too, but Vietnam is more innovative than refined with their drinks and has a very distinct and unique coffee culture. In Vietnam cold brew was harder to find, but I didn't miss it because the other options were novel and great.

I imagine it was a few years ago, or in country side because nowadays you can find a lot of good independent coffee shops in Tokyo or big cities.

> Finding it at a cafe that doesn't also allow smoking was harder.

As a long-time Japan resident, I had the same problem for many years. But smoking indoors in public places was finally banned nationwide in Japan effective April 2020 [1].

I don’t know how effective the new rule is in bars and the like, but all of the cafes I’ve been in in recent years have been either completely nonsmoking or have had a separate, walled-off smoking room.

[1] https://www.gov-online.go.jp/useful/article/201907/2.html

I have never had UCC but that sounds a lot like what cheap instant coffee tastes like to me. Initially I thought it might be an auto reaction to old break rooms when people were allowed to smoke so I associated instant coffee with cigarette smoke, but I had a cold brew in a bottle the other day and that same sensation happened.

In my experience UCC's cheap instant coffee is better than their canned ones. To my taste of course.

Kirkland canned cold brew is extremely bitter and tastes overly dark and borderline burnt to me. On other hand Trader Joe’s canned cold brew is perfectly medium for my taste

I think Kirkland cold brew's problem is the Colombian bean it uses. I remember trying a Colombian pour over and feeling a greater understanding about my dislike of Kirkland cold brew.

Agreed, that Columbian Supremo is roasted beyond what I would even call dark. The Kirkland signature blends are roasted by Starbucks so we know why those are burnt but the Columbian seems to be by someone else.

I’m not sure when you were last in Japan, but I know the BOSS machines at least have a couple of excellent black varieties now.

I’m not sure I’d go as far as excellent but it can hit the spot under the right circumstances.

If all you need is caffeine, there are pills, and there are candies. Fast and efficient.

Brewed coffee has other upsides, like the flavor :)

Caffeine tablets are way underrated. The equivalent of ~200 cups of coffee in tablet form is less than $10.

(and yes, I love real coffee too but it is far more expensive even made at home from the cheapest grocery store beans available)

It sounds like you actually don’t like them. And all the offices I’ve been at, getting hot black coffee took about as much work as getting ice into a cup.

So why?

Cold brew coffee is the easiest coffee to have on hand in the morning, and, as a bonus, so-so beans make pretty good cold brew.

Big mason jar, one of those coke brew tea/coffee inserts for it that you can find on Amazon, start it about 8 hours before you want it (the night before) and you’re golden. Add coffee, add water, stick in fridge overnight. It’s not more work than the simplest methods of making hot coffee in the morning, short of keurig or instant coffee.

Don’t settle for kinda-bad premade cold brew when you could have kinda-OK homemade for less money and barely more work.

(Incidentally, I drink my hot coffee black, but like about a teaspoon of heavy cream per 16-20oz of cold brew—I find all but the absolute best cold brew is a lot better with a little splash of cream)

Do you have a pic or a link on how to prepare it, and how your setup looks like?

Thanks!

Not the parent, but have been using on of these Hario cold brew coffee makers for years. Fill up the basket with ground coffee, add water, and let it sit in the fridge overnight. I agree with the parent, there is no need to use expensive beans for cold brew (although I do always grind my own beans). Black cold brew has a bit of a funny taste to me, but with a splash of milk it’s delicious.

https://www.amazon.com/Hario-Mizudashi-Coffee-1000ml-Brown/d...

These past couple years I’ve been drinking my coffee black, will find out the taste of cold brew tomorrow!

Loved the coffee maker recommendation! looks practical and easy to use, thanks

Here's my setup:

- I use two large 64oz mason jars (best price via Walmart):

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ball-Wide-Mouth-64oz-Half-Gallon-...

- In the past I used a metal filter from IKEA to filter the coffee by pouring into an empty mason jar:

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/oeverst-metal-coffee-filter-sta...

In the past year I switched to a mason jar pouring spout that has a built in filter that's at the right granularity to filter cold brew as you pour it into a glass:

https://www.amazon.com/Tea-Spot-stainless-Comfortable-Pitche...

That saves a bit of effort since the cold brew gets filtered when I pour it.

As far as how I prepare it:

I add a bit shy of 1/2 a cup of ground coffee per 64oz mason jar, mix vigorously and let it sit overnight (less than that and the flavors aren't quite yet there).

I don't proactively filter out the coffee grinds since the built in filter takes care of that. When one jar starts to run low, I start another one.

I use filters like these:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CB628TNX/

Get cheap mason jars locally wherever, (wal mart is usually cheap, some grocery stores may have cheap ones), grounds in filter, filter in jar, add water, jar goes in fridge. You can also use them to make cold (or hot) brewed iced tea from loose leaves. There are different sizes of those filters for different sizes of jars. I like the 64oz jars.

Pull the filter out when it’s done to avoid overbrewing/oversteeping. Keeps a few days in the fridge.

Recipes (grounds:water ratio, brew time) abound online. Pick one and try it. I like 10-12 hours with something like 80g of grounds, with this method, for a 64oz jar.

I should get a pour spout lid for the jar, that’d never occurred to me and they look nice.

One downside to filtering at the lid instead of in a basket-type filter is that you have to pour it in another container to stop the brew. Whether that matters depends on consumption patterns and personal preference.

> Pull the filter out when it’s done to avoid overbrewing/oversteeping

I’d never have thought about that! Thanks, appreciate it

Ended up doing a DIY homemade thing with a filter I had, will check the recommendations.

Many thanks! the coffee-water ratio was going to be my next question.

Update: Cold brew is a game changer, I'm a convert.

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