I'll be honest — once I start seriously thinking about something like this, I can't stop.
What began as "I want iced coffee with less effort" somehow expanded into a discussion about coffee bean varieties.

It Started with "I Want to Gulp It Down in Summer"

Every summer, my motivation to make iced coffee with a pour-over evaporates. Boiling water, dripping, rapid-cooling with ice — in a hot kitchen, the whole process is more exhausting than you'd think.

That's when I started looking into cold brew as an alternative.

The OXO Brew Cold Brew Maker had caught my eye in reviews for a while. The concept is dead simple: steep coffee grounds in water, wait 12 to 24 hours, and you get a concentrate. Pour what you need into a glass and dilute with water or ice.

The moment I thought "this is it" was when I realized you can make it in batches.

Brew once or twice a week, and after that, it's just grab-and-go from the fridge. It perfectly matched my desire to gulp down cold coffee on hot days.

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Then the "Which Beans?" Problem Began

After deciding to go with cold brew, another question surfaced.

"Am I choosing my beans the right way?"

I'd been subscribing to a monthly delivery of AGF's "Chotto Zeitaku na Coffee-ten Special Blend" — 240g × 3 bags. About 609 yen per bag, roughly 2.5 yen per gram. That's 720g per month, around 1,800 yen.

Cold brew uses about 175g per batch. Compared to pour-over at 10–12g per cup, that's 1.5 to 2 times the consumption. If I'm drinking liberally in summer, usage goes up even more. There was room to optimize here.

I had several options:

Option 1: Switch to the 1kg version of the same brand
Same taste. Lower unit cost. No friction.

Option 2: Freshness-focused options
I discovered beans that are roasted to order or available in coarse grind. Appealing from a freshness standpoint. But when I checked the cost, they were pricier than what I was buying. Since the goal was "better cost performance," this wasn't the right move for now.

Option 3: UCC Gold Special Rich Blend, 1kg
About 2,367 yen via Amazon Subscribe & Save. Designed for full body — seemed like a good fit for cold brew.

Option 4: Yamamoto Coffee European Blend, 1kg
From an established Osaka roaster founded in 1950. Around 1,568 yen at Costco.

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"Does It Really Have to Be Coarse Grind?"

As I narrowed the options, one concern lingered.

Cold brew guides consistently recommend coarse grind. Since the grounds steep in water for hours, a fine grind leads to over-extraction and bitterness. It also clogs the filter at the bottom.

My current AGF is a medium-fine grind. Should I source coarse-ground beans separately, or buy whole beans and grind them myself?

I paused and asked myself:

"Does it really have to be coarse grind?"

After looking into it, I found that medium grind works fine if you shorten the steep time. Try 12 to 16 hours instead of 12 to 24. Since you dilute the concentrate with water or milk anyway, a slightly stronger extraction isn't a problem. Cold brew is inherently forgiving as a brewing method.

The moment I landed on "coarse is ideal, but medium works with some adjustment," the range of options widened.

If that's the case, I could just repurpose my current AGF for cold brew. And if I wanted better cost performance, the answer was simple: just switch to the 1kg version of the same brand.

The "They're Basically the Same" Wall

Still, part of me wanted to reconsider the beans themselves. The final two contenders were Gold Special Rich Blend and Yamamoto Coffee.

Looking deeper, both were dark-roast-leaning and seemed well suited for cold brew. Price-wise, when buying on Amazon, they were nearly identical.

I got stuck here.

I'd noticed a review of Yamamoto Coffee mentioning that "astringency tends to increase after opening." At first, I took this as a negative. But then I thought about it more carefully. All ground coffee begins oxidizing the moment you open the bag. This isn't unique to Yamamoto Coffee.

With that realization, the two options were essentially on equal footing.

When I asked myself "Then what do I base my choice on?", the answer surprised even me.

The Deciding Factor Was "How I Drink It"

Not specs. Not price. What ultimately mattered was a question about how I drink my coffee.

"How do I actually drink my cold brew?"

The answer was simple. I drink it black.

That single fact narrowed the choice instantly.

Yamamoto Coffee's European Blend uses Arabica beans as a base but blends in Robusta. While Robusta adds bitterness and body, it can also introduce off-flavors during long steeping. For black coffee, 100% Arabica produces a cleaner, less astringent result.

For the first time, the difference between Arabica and Robusta stopped being "a spec" and became "my story."

I went with UCC Gold Special Rich Blend.

When "How You Drink It" Is Decided, Everything Else Falls into Place

Looking back, there was a pattern to this whole thought process.

I started by comparing on cost performance. Then the grind-size question made me pause, and the realization that "medium grind works with some tweaks" opened up my options. The post-opening oxidation concern was reset by asking "isn't this true for all of them?" And the final deciding factor was the simple question: "How do I drink it?"

Spec sheets are just tools for starting a comparison. Until you decide "how do I actually want to use this?", no amount of information will give you clarity.

This was about coffee beans, but I think the same applies to most choices. Instead of comparing endlessly, deciding "how I want to use it" first makes the comparison much shorter.

I plan to get everything set up before summer arrives. After that, it's just grab-and-go from the fridge.