Now Sipping on Sightglass Cold!

Until just a few years ago, coffee was hot.

The steam, the nice thick mugs, the cozy vibes — when someone asked “You wanna grab a cup of coffee?,” you just knew it was going to be piping.

Then coffee went cold. Suddenly everyone was carrying around a cup of iced coffee, and not just in summer either, but all. the. time. (And in those early, long-forgotten days, everyone struggled with getting the stupid sugar to dissolve.)

This early iced coffee, to be entirely honest, wasn’t very good. Some people just brewed hot coffee and then let it sit in the fridge. Then came the rise of the toddy, which steeps the coffee in room temperature water for twelve-plus hours to create “cold brew.” We knew it could be better. So what’s the solution?

[Drumroll]

Introducing Sightglass Cold!

What is Sightglass Cold?

Sightglass Cold is cold coffee without compromise.

We’ve loved cold coffee for years, but to us the standard brewing method—soaking ground coffee in water for hours—offers an uninspiring cup. Without the addition of heat, the magical coffee alchemy that produces special acids and compounds never happens. And if the coffee is brewed hot and then left to cool, oxidation completely destroys the nuance and complexity.

We’ve known for a long time that one solution is the Japanese-style method of pour-over brewing directly onto ice, but it can be very difficult to control the amount of cold water in the solution, too often leading to a diluted (or overly-concentrated) cup. 

Sightglass Cold is the solution. By brewing the coffee hot, chilling it immediately, and then maintaining anaerobic conditions in airtight containers, we capture the aromatics and compounds that offer the elevated coffee experience our customers expect.

The result? The truest expression of the roast profiles that we’ve tirelessly refined over the last 10 years.

So How do You Make It?

Sightglass Cold is brewed using custom-engineered equipment in a commercial space in the Mission. We’re starting with our beloved Blueboon blend, singing with of notes of milk chocolate, mandarin and honeysuckle, and soon we’ll offer some of our favorite single origin coffees as well.

Our method extracts all the volatile compounds found in roasted coffee and uses commercial heat exchangers to drop the temperature instantaneously to lock in flavors. To eliminate oxidation, we flush and pressurize our containers and then keep the coffee cold until the moment it’s served. A Sightglass Cold is as fresh and delicious as a cool breeze on the single hot day we have each year in San Francisco.