Why Heat Matters in Coffee (and in Grada)

What comes to your mind when you think about your morning coffee? Is it popping the kettle on to make your favourite nescafe? Is it assembling your favourite Italian style coffee, with a traditional Bialetti? Putting it on the stove and anxiously awaiting your first morning drop? There’s something about the ritual and the art of making hot coffee. The kettle whistling, steam rising, the pressure building and the aroma fills the air before you’ve even taken a sip. For most of us, coffee begins with heat. But beyond tradition, there’s a science and a work of art to hot extraction, that defines why coffee tastes the way it does.

Hot extraction simply means brewing coffee with hot water, which typically sits between 90 and 96°C. Making a filter coffee such a pour over requires a more gentle heat, max 92°. If you are looking for an espresso, which is extracted with pressure and hot water, that’ll typically be between 96° and 100° (max). Now let's get into science. At this temperature range, water is vibrant enough to dissolve the soluble compounds inside roasted coffee: The acids, oils, sugars, and aromatics. The result is a drink with structure, vibrancy, and balance.

However, hot extraction is a delicate process and requires more attention to detail than cold brew . Too little, and you get sour, thin coffee; too much, and bitterness takes over. The sweet spot creates a cup that’s layered, sometimes bold, elegant and satisfying.

Cold brew has become one of the newest buzzwords over the last decade in the specialty coffee world. It’s smooth, mellow, and low in acidity. But while that style has its place, it doesn’t capture the full potential of coffee. Cold water can’t dissolve the same range of compounds as hot water (more science). You lose brightness, body, and nuance.

That’s why cold brew often tastes one-dimensional. Hot extraction, on the other hand, gives you a spectrum: citrus, florals, spices, sweetness, and that “coffee that tastes like real coffee” character most people crave.

At Grada, hot extraction isn’t just a brewing choice, it’s the foundation of our product. Every batch of our liqueur starts with coffee brewed at high temperatures to capture the oils, body, and aromatics that makes the coffee shine.

Cold brew might seem like the easy option for a coffee spirit, but it simply doesn’t hold its ground once alcohol and sugar are added.. Cold extraction can give you smoothness, but it often strips away the structure that makes coffee vibrant. 

With hot extraction, we lock in flavour integrity. That means when you sip Grada neat, you get depth, the richness and complexity. And when you shake it into an espresso martini, it doesn’t disappear behind vodka or syrup, it uses them as a way to elevate. The crema, the body, the backbone of coffee are all there, amplified by heat at the very beginning of the process.

For us, hot extraction is about more than flavour. It’s about respecting the work at origin and making sure every bean we source shows up in the glass. If the farm puts years into producing complex coffee, our job is to preserve that, not dilute it. That’s why Grada is unapologetically hot brewed: it’s the truest way to honour the coffee, the farmer, and the consumer.

(could end the article here or could add the bottom paragraph, it is optional)

For everyday drinkers, the takeaway is simple: if you want to experience coffee at its fullest, drink it brewed hot, even if you want it cold, make sure it is hot extracted over ice. It’s the method that unlocks complexity and lets the origin shine. Cold brew has its role, as do all coffees in the supply chain, it is refreshing in summer, an easy way for people who wouldn't normally drink coffee, but it’s not the foundation of specialty coffee. 

With Grada, that philosophy becomes tangible. Every pour is proof of what heat can do: a liqueur with backbone, structure, and soul.

Heat doesn’t just extract flavour; it’s symbolic. It’s what wakes us up, warms our hands on those cold winter mornings, and brings people together. The act of boiling water and brewing coffee is as universal as it gets, from Melbourne laneways to the mountains of Brazil. When we talk about hot extraction, we’re really talking about the essence of coffee itself  and with Grada, that essence is captured in every glass.