The notion of cold-brewed coffee sounded to us, frankly, weird, to most people, brewing coffee minus the heat is quite impossible
After all, heat seems intrinsic to the coffee process. Why would you possibly want to leave grounds soaking for half a day in an ugly plastic pitcher, like so much Kool-Aid? There's only one possible reason we were willing to try the Toddy coffee system, one of a handful of cold-brew options available: It works.
In the beginning
The idea of commercializing the method of brewing coffee without the heat or cold brewing came from a chemical engineer, Todd Simpson. It is said that in 1964 he got the idea in a small café in Guatemala. This is when he received a small flask of cool concentrate and some boiling water upon ordering. This makes him wonder whether his mother, who couldn't stomach coffee, might be able to enjoy the cold coffee instead. Eventually his mother could and this leads him to develop the cold brewing device known as the “Toddy system” which is being commercialized now.
Todd Simpson believes that it may be an ancient Peruvian method, and coffee concentrates first showed up in 19th-century America. Another theory traces it back to Java. However, nobody knows for sure where cold coffee brewing method came from.
No heat, no plug
It's not an immediately comfortable transition. The technology is profoundly low-tech: a plastic pitcher with a fabric filter, sitting atop a carafe that catches the finished product. No electricity needed, just gravity, a pound of ground beans and nine cups of cold water. That and 10 to 12 hours steeping time.
It is said that the coffee produced through this method is less acidic, less caffeine and also friendly to sensitive stomach. Toddy claims to brew up two-thirds less caffeine than regular coffee; in a side-by side test using Starbucks' regular blend, the Toddy version had a pH of 6.31 and 40 mg of caffeine per 100 grams of coffee, while Starbucks store-brewed clocked in at a pH of 5.48 and 61 mg of caffeine. (Lower numbers on the pH scale, which is measured logarithmically, denote more acid.)
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