What is Kyoto Style Slow-Drip Coffee?

Kyoto style slow-drip coffee is a cold brewing style that was originally made popular in Kyoto, Japan. Some baristas refer to this brew method as simply slow drip, Kyoto-Style coffee, or cold drip coffee – whatever the name, it all means the same.

Just as the name suggests, this brewing device utilizes an extremely slow dripping method of cold water over a bed of coffee grounds in a process that can take over 12 hours from start to finish.

Trust me, the painstakingly slow drip-drop of water every second is worth the wait.

Over the decades, this slow coffee brewing process has evolved, and you can now find some elegant, tall glass slow drippers that can take up an entire kitchen countertop.

Why the Rise in Popularity?

You may have noticed that many high-end coffee shops are now serving Kyoto-style Japanese coffee and proudly display what seems like a science lab of tall glass coffee towers.

What the rise in popularity? It all comes down to the wow factor!

Would you, as a customer, prefer to have an iced coffee from one of these tall drip towers? Of course, you would, and that’s the reason why so many small and independent coffee shops are incorporating this type of Japanese coffee maker into their establishment as part of the functioning décor – anything to get one over on the competition! 

How Does the Kyoto-Style Coffee Taste?

Don’t confuse Kyoto-style iced coffee with a regular cold brew; they are entirely different. Cold brew coffee is brewed using a method called full immersion. This means that the coffee is left to soak (steep) in the water for anywhere between 12 to 24 hours.

Throughout this time, the coffee grounds and the water are in full contact with each other. The resulting brewed coffee is a very strong concentrate that has a high caffeine level and, in most cases, it is diluted before drinking.

Iced coffee, on the other hand, is typically just regular hot brewed coffee that has ice added to it. As the ice melts, you're often left with a very watered-down mediocre cup of coffee. It's not even on the same playing field as Kyoto-style iced coffee.

The Japanese slow drip iced-coffee method is not full-immersion, like cold brew, because the water is slowly dripping over your ground coffee and then filters through and ends up in a separate glass beaker. As the water passes through the coffee, it collects all of the goodness before it exists!

Cold-brew coffee typically has less acidity compared to coffee brewed using a slow drip coffee maker and a lot more earthy. Kyoto-style slow drip is known for capturing more of the high notes that you can only find when slowly brewing coffee with cold water over a long period.