Cold brew often gets a bad rap, but we’re here to defend it! It’s often treated like its day-old coffee from the fridge, but cold brew is so much more than that. With some attention to detail and quality coffee grounds, cold brews can have beautiful flavors and complexity.
Traditionally, cold brews are brewed at lower temperatures for a longer time, allowing the coffee grounds to steep in the colder water for many hours before serving. This can be difficult to execute on a large-scale for cafes, as it is time consuming and takes up space. When we opened our first cafe, our cold brew solution was Ground Control. You’ve probably seen these large mechanical brewers in our cafes, brewing both drip coffee and cold brew. We loved this system because it can brew a batch of deliciously complex cold brew in about 10 minutes, rather than 24 hours, without sacrificing any quality or nuance.
However, in 2025, Ground Control announced their closure. They are no longer producing new machines or servicing existing machines. We have several of these brewers– one in each cafe, and one in our warehouse for client services and events. Once they die, we will have no way to service or replace them, and we are currently seeking an alternative that meets our cafe's needs.
For now, we are working to extend the lifespan of our existing machines by only using them for drip coffee. This should give us some more time with them. For cold brew, we’re going “old-school” in our cafes and switching to long-form, traditional brewing!
Over the past month, we transitioned to the TODDY brewing system. We love it because we can brew larger batches. This system is created with cafes in mind and makes it easy for us to brew gallons at a time! We have heard positive reviews about our cold brew since making this transition. It draws out the complexity of our Ridge Blend very well, and is very similar in taste to our Ground Control cold brew.
Are you a cold brew enthusiast? Let us know what you think of the new system!
IMPORTANT: You shouldn’t notice a difference in the quality of our cold brew. We are using the same excellent coffee that you love and recognize at Baba Java, but it may taste slightly stronger.