I Make My Own Starbucks-Style Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew at Home (And It's Wonderful)
In a hunt for a new drink at Starbucks that was cheaper than my usual iced soy vanilla latte, I discovered that I greatly prefer their cold brew with vanilla sweet cream. I am NOT a super taster, or someone who cares deeply about food, so when I tell you that these two drinks taste basically the same, don’t you dare roll your eyes at me. They DO to ME, But the cold brew is cheaper and has less calories. So I made the switch. THEN I thought, “I bet I could make this myself.” and I went on a cold brew and vanilla sweet cream journey and you know what? I did it. I now make my own cold brew AND my own vanilla sweet cream and it’s easier, cheaper, and dare I say tastier than the original.
Searching for how to make cold brew, I found about a million tactics. Some are super involved and seem perfect for a coffee snob, but what if you’re me and think a vanilla latte and vanilla sweet cream cold brew are “basically the same” (I only wrote that again in the hopes that a coffee snob chokes on their pour over reading this.) I found this amazing cold brew maker from Takeya, which has thousands of rave reviews and lives up to the hype.
The Takeya Cold Brew Pitcher comes with an airtight lid, a screw-on (or off) filter, and is incredibly easy to use. First, get the pitcher. It’s relatively cheap compared to similar setups. Then use a coarsely ground coffee. I don’t own a coffee grinder, so I buy pre-ground. I did not know how to tell if a coffee was “coarsely ground,” so I gave it a Google and basically just bought one that didn’t say finely ground. Like I said, this is a very simple process, don’t overthink it. It says to fill the filter with 14-16 tbsp of ground coffee, and I measured it once and it’s basically 3/4 full, so just eyeball it. Then screw the filter into the lid. MAKE SURE IT’S TIGHT. When I took these photos I didn’t screw the filter to the lid tight enough and I ended up with little grounds in my finished cold brew. Ruined the whole batch and I had to start over.
Cold brew, post initial shaking
So your filter is filled with grounds, and fastened securely to the lid. Now fill the pitcher with filtered water, about 3/4 of the way full. You want it to cover all the grounds in the filter, but allow for some displacement when you put the filter in the water. Again, eyeball it. It’s not rocket surgery. Put the filter/lid into the pitcher and close it as tightly as you can. You want it to be VERY securely closed because the next step is to shake it. Just shake the shit out of it. Your water (soon to be coffee) will go from looking like filthy water to the delicious mahogany of cold brew. Once you’ve sufficiently performed a Shake Weight commercial impression, pop that pitcher in the fridge overnight. Periodically shake it again, but like, not to the point of distraction. If I set up the cold brew around 3pm, I’ll shake it when I’m making dinner, before I go to bed, and maybe once in the morning before I feed the dog.
When your cold brew is ready, unscrew the lid and remove the filter. I dump the grounds in the compost and put the filter in the dishwasher (all the pieces are dishwasher safe). Then screw on the lid. To pour, just screw the lid so that it pops up a little, and it pours easily.
As for the vanilla sweet cream, I use this recipe from The Kitchn. It’s incredibly easy and is a very good dupe for Starbucks. If you make 1.5 batches of this recipe, it will fill a 1qt bottle of Natural Bliss creamer. I used this creamer at first, before I tried the vanilla sweet cream recipe, and now I use the bottle to hold my homemade creamer. As for serving, I use one of the reusable cold cups from Starbucks that you can buy at the till for $2. I add some ice, then fill it a little more than halfway with cold brew, then fill maybe 2/3 of the remainder with my vanilla sweet cream. This leaves a little room at the top, so I can add more coffee or cream to taste. (The above photos are an attempt to explain without relying on my flawed understanding of fractions). ET VOILA. A super easy, cheap, delicious way to recreate my favorite Starbucks drink at home.
