Blue Bottle’s new drinks are taking the espresso machine out of iced espresso

Blue Bottle Coffee, the coffee chain, has long been known for its cold drinks—particularly its New Orleans-style iced coffee cold brewed with chicory root. But while cold brewing in this traditional way has more or less been perfected, the need to pull hot shots of espresso has remained a damper on iced lattes everywhere. Now, though, Blue Bottle’s CEO, Kevin Strovink, tells Fast Company, “We’ve cracked the code on cold espresso.” The chain—owned by Beijing-based Centurium Capital, majority shareholder in Luckin Coffee—is rolling out its Kyoto-style espresso. This cold-extracted espresso will be featured in new menu items and all of its cold espresso drinks from now on. [Photo: Blue Bottle] The new slate of eight iced espresso-based drinks is designed to bring Blue Bottle customers a more balanced, coffee-forward iced experience at a time when cold drinks are becoming more popular than hot ones. It could also transform how Blue Bottle’s stores operate, removing a café’s biggest bottleneck—the espresso machine—from the process of making cold drinks while retaining great taste. “Cold is the new hot in the coffee industry,” Strovink tells Fast Company. “Up until now, specialty coffee hasn’t had cold as a protagonist.” [Photo: Blue Bottle] No heat, no problems The biggest benefit of the Kyoto-style drinks is that, unlike espresso pulled hot from a machine, they won’t get diluted by melting ice. That gives the chain an opportunity to highlight the cold-extracted espresso on its own. The new Shakerato—a shot of the Kyoto-style shaken with ice to create some foam—is the cornerstone of Blue Bottle’s menu additions. “We’re quietly resolving one of the biggest conflicts in cold espresso-based beverages,” Strovink says. “Hot-drawn espresso over ice produces an inferior product that doesn’t allow the coffee to fully express itself.” Hot espresso is not designed to be poured over ice. So it makes one wonder, as iced drinks skyrocket in popularity, w