Cold brew bottle
A sealed bottle or carafe with a long removable filter core, made for steeping leaf in cold water in a refrigerator. Everything about it is convenience — the extraction happens whether or not the vessel is purpose-built — but the filter core does solve the one real nuisance, which is straining several hours of steeped leaf out of a full jug.
Identity
- Category
- Brewing vessel
- Also called
- cold brew carafe, fridge jug, infusion bottle
- Material
- Borosilicate glass or BPA-free plastic with a steel or plastic filter core
- Typical capacity
- 500–1500 ml
- Skill level
- Beginner
Porosity
Not porous. It contributes nothing of its own to the liquor, so it can be moved between teas freely and washed with detergent without consequence.
Where it comes from
Modern, and popularised alongside Japanese mizudashi practice, though refrigerated steeping needs no special vessel anywhere.
Named here rather than presented as generic equipment. The object belongs to a practice, and TeaHQ describes it from the outside.
If you do not own one
A jam jar and a sieve. This is genuinely a comfort purchase, and the only functional argument for it is that a sealed lid keeps refrigerator odours out of a drink that will sit for eight hours absorbing them.
This one is not marked essential. The tea can be made without it.
Brewing methods it is used for
- Cold brew tea — Leaf steeped in cold water in the refrigerator for several hours. Low temperature extracts the sweet and savoury compounds readily and the bitter and astringent ones barely at all, producing a cup that is genuinely different rather than simply a chilled version of a hot one.
- Sweet tea (American Southern style) — Black tea brewed hot and strong as a concentrate, sweetened while it is still hot, then diluted with cold water and chilled. It is a regional American household staple, and the sequence of those four steps is the whole method — rearranging them produces a different and worse drink.
Tea types it suits
Care and maintenance
Wash between batches rather than topping up — the vessel sits at refrigerator temperature for hours and residue accumulates. Dry the filter core fully; it is the part that holds moisture.
Other brewing vessels
- Berrad (Maghrebi teapot)
- Boiling teapot
- Brewing saucepan
- Çaydanlık (Turkish double kettle)
- Chawan (matcha bowl)
- Chinese lidded mug
- Dagwan (Korean teapot)
- Dobin
- Enamel-lined cast iron teapot
- Gaiwan
- Glass teapot
- Glazed stoneware teapot
- Houhin
- Kyusu
- Nixing pottery teapot
- Plastic teaware
- Plunger tea press
- Porcelain teapot
- Quick-brew infuser press
- Ru-glaze crackle ware
- Shiboridashi
- Silver teapot
- Stainless steel teapot
- Travel gongfu set
- Travel infuser bottle
- Unglazed clay teapot (non-Yixing)
- Western teapot
- Yixing teapot
- Zavarnik (concentrate pot)
Sources
This page is TeaHQ synthesis. No external source stands behind the description, the material or the account of how the object is cared for. Where the record names a tradition, that attribution is TeaHQ’s own reading of common practice rather than a citation.
TeaHQ names no maker, brand or shop and has nothing to sell. Nothing on this page should be read as advice to buy the object — the substitute note above exists because owning it is usually optional.
Written comparisons
Where TeaHQ has set this piece of teaware against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.
- Cold brew bottle vs travel infuser bottle — Two bottles with removable filters, designed for opposite thermal situations. One is a refrigerator vessel where a long steep is intended; the other is a portable vessel where a long steep is the failure mode.