Marketers spend a lot of time searching for new “hooks” with which to advertise their products: “New and Improved!” “Twice the Cleaning Power!” “Now With [sciency-sounding ingredient]!”

Another common marketing approach is to tout a landmark new process or feature: “Better Living Through Chemistry!”  “First With 5G!” “Ice beer!” “Bluetooth-enabled!”

The new product being advertised may or may not be exactly the same as the old one (some ice beers are actually quite good), but some of the claims may simply be dumb. Honestly, who really needs a Bluetooth-enabled toothbrush? And even if the improvement or feature really is something special, repeated exposure to marketing hype makes consumers less likely to pay attention to it.

Beverages are certainly front-and-center when it comes to marketing claims. “No calories, same great taste!” and “Tastes Great, Less Filling!” immediately come to mind.

So what do we make of relatively new and heavily advertised products like cold brew coffee? Is it something special, or just a marketing term for iced coffee?

Here’s the truth: cold brew coffee isn’t really new, it’s just new to America. It’s a completely different beverage than iced coffee. And like ice beer, it can be really darned good.

Let’s unravel the story behind cold brew.

We all know how to make an iced coffee. Prepare your favorite brew (or the easiest one to make, depending on how much time you have), pour it over ice, and you’re done. Or, of course, just visit any local restaurant or drive-thru; they all make it. Ahhh. Pouring coffee into a cup of ice makes it a refreshing summertime beverage.

Cold brew coffee isn’t iced coffee, though. It usually isn’t served over ice. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be served cold.

That’s because “cold brew” doesn’t refer to the way that coffee is served or the temperature it’s served at. “Cold brew” simply describes the actual brewing method.

You start in the usual way, with ground coffee beans. After that, everything changes.

First of all, forget about the boiling water. You don’t even need hot water. Cold brew gets its name from the fact that it’s made with either cold or room temperature water. The ground coffee is left to steep in the water for at least twelve hours (many companies steep it for 16-24 hours), and then filtered to remove the sediment. What’s left is a very flavorful coffee concentrate.

Think of the process as being similar to making sun tea on your back porch, but without the sun – and without the porch, since there a number of cold brew coffee makers like the Oxo, the Filtron and the Toddy. 

What’s the point of cold brewing?

Well, it’s certainly easier to make cold brew coffee than hot brew, since you just put the coffee into cold water and let it sit; it just takes more time for the finished product to be ready. More importantly, the taste and body of coffee depend on the solids that are dissolved in it; steeping coffee for 12+ hours maximizes those solids, particularly the extracted coffee oils.

Cold brewing results in a smoother, richer coffee, with less acidity and more sweetness than a hot cup of coffee. One self-funded study by Toddy shows that cold brew has between one-third and one-half the acid of regular coffee. That’s a huge benefit for those with IBS, heartburn or other gastrointestinal problems. One important qualifier: the acid’s only reduced if the coffee isn’t over-extracted.

There’s another good reason to try cold brewing. Coffee’s flavor normally changes over time, because temperature changes affect the liquid’s chemistry. Cold brew has never been exposed to hot temperatures, so it’s a more-stable solution which should taste just as good several days after you make it, unlike bitter day-old coffee that’s essentially undrinkable.

And if you’re comparing cold brewed coffee to traditional iced coffee, perhaps the best advantage is the most obvious one: cold brew won’t get watered down when the ice melts.

However, one often-claimed advantage for cold brewed coffee apparently isn’t true. Proponents and manufacturers say that there are more antioxidants in cold brew, but researchers at Thomas Jefferson University have found that the levels of healthy antioxidants in cold brewed coffee and drip coffee are just about the same. In fact, hot coffee has more antioxidant properties than cold brew when dark roast beans are used.

To dispel another widely-held belief while we’re at it, cold brew doesn’t necessarily have more caffeine than espresso. Caffeine levels are completely dependent on the beans you use and how you make your coffee.

Even so, properly-brewed cold brew is a terrific coffee. Where did it come from, and why did it take so long to get here?