Now that's a lot of cold brew coffee!

The BIG STIR (32 oz. / 946 mL) @ $7.99 vs. The Little STIR (12 oz. / 355 mL) @ $3.49

We are excited to introduce the newest member to our line of STIR Cold Brew Coffee products, The BIG STIR! Due to many requests from consumers and vendors for a bigger bottle, we listened, and have now delivered! Our new BIG STIR bottles are 32 fluid ounces (or 946 milliliters) of our original (unflavored/unsweetened) ready-to-drink cold brew coffee, retailed at $7.99 per bottle. Our BIG STIR bottles can be found at both Bloomingfoods East and West locations and Lucky's Market in Bloomington, IN. Learn more here: The BIG STIR (product page).

Why isn't The BIG STIR a coffee concentrate?

Some of you may ask the question seen above, which is the purpose of this blog post. Here are three main reasons why we chose not to do a concentrate for our new 32 ounce cold brew coffee bottles. See below!

Water: One of the key reasons we chose NOT to make our 32 ounce cold brew bottles a concentrated version of our ready-to-drink cold brew coffee is water. The water you use to brew or even dilute your coffee is extremely important! Your choice of water greatly affects the taste of your coffee. By making our 32 ounce cold brew bottles ready-to-drink just like our 12 ounce bottles, we know and can ensure you that the water that's used to make our cold brew so good is always the same water with the same consistent water-to-coffee ratios. Even The Waterboy, Bobby Boucher would be proud!

When we began creating our cold brew coffee products in January of 2017 we spent the better part of two months testing out water. Call us crazy, but it makes a huge difference! Here's what we learned, tap water varies greatly depending from the source and there are big differences between "hard" or "soft" water as well. Although it's the most convenient, it's not the best choice as a water source for use in coffee because the chemical properties may vary greatly. Depending on where you live, your tap water may have different chemical properties and minerals than what we use to brew our coffee. The water treatment plant may also be different, all factors that matter when it comes to anything related to coffee.

We also learned that distilled or purified water (typically reverse osmosis) is not always the best choice either. While these both may have lessened amounts of "impurities" or be totally free of them in distilled form; it's the traces of minerals such as calcium and magnesium (found in mid-west water from limestone) that bring a full-bodied flavor to coffee. By removing everything from your water, you won't bring out the full potential in your coffee in terms of aromas and flavor profile.

By us always controlling the exact water-to-coffee ratios and using our carefully tested filtered water for the optimal chemical/mineral makeup; we can guarantee that our ready-to-drink cold brew coffee will always be ultra-clean, while boasting a full-bodied flavor profile. No dilution is needed and there's no need to worry about choosing the correct water to use yourself at home! Ready-to-drink is the way to go!
Convenience and Consistency: Simple, convenience is key. You've heard this 1,000 times, and now you have just heard it 1,001 times! We don't want our consumers to have to go home and figure out how much water to use to dilute a concentrated coffee or have to do research and test water for quality and taste. We have already done all that for you, by providing a larger ready-to-drink bottle of cold brew coffee. This way, you don't have to worry about consistency of the coffee either by needing to figure out how to dilute it yourself as mentioned before. We carefully measure each and every small batch of cold brew coffee to our specific ratios of water-to-coffee and brew it at a controlled temperature, for the same length of time every week.
Cost to (you) the consumer: Concentrated coffees cost more to produce, therefore they cost a lot more to you as the consumer after retail markup. But with our ready-to-drink cold brew that you already know and love from our 12 ounce bottles, you get much more bang for your buck at our price of $7.99 retail for our 32 ounce BIG STIR bottles. Many concentrated coffees of the same size can be $10.00 if not way more. Something we always ask ourselves when creating a new product is, "Would we actually buy this product at that price?" We take the perspective as consumers and that helps us determine what a fair price is for our craft coffee. If we wouldn't buy it at retail value, why would you? While you may ultimately get more total servings from a large bottle of concentrated coffee, the cost to you as the consumer per ounce is much, much higher. We like our cold brew coffee products to not only be fresh and great tasting, but we like them to be affordable as well. Higher cost, does not always equate to higher quality.

And that folks, is why we chose to make our new BIG STIR bottles ready-to-drink instead of a coffee concentrate. It's the same original STIR Cold Brew you already know and love, just in a larger bottle, no reason to change it. We hope you enjoy our new bigger bottles, thank you for continuing to "cause a STIR" with us and don't forget to #SaveNShare!

Written and posted by: Alexander Rubin, STIR Mobile Coffee, Co-Owner