Iced coffee is no longer just a summer treat – cold brew is now a year-round must-have for many people who prefer an icy twist on their everyday caffeine fix. But there’s more to cold brew than simply making coffee using cold water – and trust me, that won’t taste good.
Cold brew gained popularity during the 2010s, and at the time, many people got their iced coffees in their local coffee shops or pre-made from the supermarket. Making your own cold brew or iced coffee at home has since evolved, and now, you can get dedicated cold brew makers to get alongside your standard coffee machine or kettle to make your hot coffee.
But that has also seen a recent change. In the past couple years, there’s been a significant trend in the best bean to cup coffee machines upgraded their technology with cold brew options, so you can use one appliance to make both hot and cold drinks.
Here are three bean to cup coffee machines that come with cold brew technology, so you can enjoy both hot and cold coffee all year round.
How does Cold Brew technology work?
Before I dive into the coffee machines, it’s important to understand how cold brew technology works. Making iced coffee at home isn’t as easy as you might think, as making a coffee with cold water results in acidic, diluted coffee as it doesn’t properly extract the flavour of your coffee beans.
Instead cold brew makers and coffee machines with cold brew technology work by getting that full coffee flavour by brewing and extracting at a much lower and colder temperature. It can take up to five minutes to get the extraction right, and this results in cold brewed coffee that isn’t acidic and has light and smooth flavours.
3 bean to cup coffee machines with cold brew
(Image credit: Sage)
Sage launched its original Barista Touch Impress in 2023, and it’s the best coffee machine I’ve ever used – which is why it got a five star review and won a T3 Award in 2024. I haven’t stopped raving about it since it launched, as it has plenty of coffee options, customisable grinding and shots, and AutoMilQ settings – and now it comes with cold brew!
The cold brew technology is an addition to the Barista Touch Impress, so there’s now an option with the cold extraction and without. The Sage Barista Touch Impress with Cold Extraction has the exact same features and hot drinks as the original, but it now comes with five cold options: cold espresso, cold brew, espresso martini, espresso shakerato and latte shakerato – the final three come with a recipe on the touchscreen so you don’t put vodka in your coffee machine.
While the extracting process could be a little slow at times, the coffee came out perfectly cold and tasted just as strong, smooth and flavourful as if I’d brewed it hot. I loved the latte shakerato and cold brew options, and enjoyed that I still had hot coffees available to me rather than having to use another machine.
2. Ninja Luxe Café
(Image credit: Ninja)
Ninja debuted its first ever coffee machine in 2024, and it really thought of everything when it launched. The Ninja Luxe Café is a 3-in-1 espresso, filter and cold brew coffee maker, and it comes with Barista Assist technology. When you select a coffee, the machine will recommend the exact settings to get the most out of your drink.
The Ninja Luxe Café comes with three espresso styles, four coffee styles, seven drink sizes and four froth presets. The espresso styles include cold pressed espresso, while the coffee style also has cold brew. What’s even more clever though is that the Ninja Luxe Café has cold froth which is perfect for colder drinks. See our full Ninja Luxe Café review for more details.
3. De’Longhi La Specialista Opera with Cold Brew
(Image credit: De’Longhi)
De’Longhi has seriously impressed us in the past year, and its La Specialista Opera is no exception. Described by our reviewer as the ‘best domestic espresso machine ever’, the De’Longhi La Specialista Opera makes delicious espresso and milk-based drinks, and it does it effortlessly, thanks to its easy-to-use controls.
The De’Longhi La Specialista Opera comes with two types of cold brew – cold brew and espresso cool. It makes cold brew in under five minutes, and active temperature control that maintains the right water temperature throughout the brewing process. It might not have as many options as the Sage or the Ninja, but the cold brew is easy to make into other drinks using the cool-touch steam wand, and the espresso cool is better for cocktail-making. See our De’Longhi La Specialista Opera review for more details.
