Coffee, the drink of insomniacs and jittery all-nighters, has met its match in a new slow-brewed beverage gaining grounds at some of Toronto’s select coffee houses.

Rather than bubbling in a pot on the stove, it is slowly filtered across ice. Its preparation time is measured in hours, even days.

The Toddy brewing process — perfected by an American and popularized in Japan — is the cool new way to sip a coffee on a hot summer day.

“Oh, that’s delicious,” says Susan Dolgoy, a Toronto-based speech pathologist trying her first Toddy at Crafted café on the lower Ossington strip. “It has a purity to it that you normally don’t get from coffee.”

Barista Meghan Ancheta puts ice and water in the top of the $250 Toddy maker, a towering machine of glass beakers and transparent Pyrex coils, imported from Japan.

During the six-hour cold-brew process, icy water drips into the finely ground coffee before the brew is filtered, collected and stored in the refrigerator where, like a fine wine, it matures for up to 2 days.

“It’s a pain the butt to make,” says Ancheta. “You need very precise measurements.”

The toddy is a silky drink, tasting less acidic than the hot version. Heat is coffee’s catalyst, opening up the heavier, more dominant flavours, while the slowness of the cold-brew process opens up more fruity notes.

Toddy brewing also known as cold-brewed coffee, was popularized in Japan, and is only now being introduced to Canada. Served chilled with ice, several Toronto cafés have recently introduced it for the summer including Crafted, Te Aro, 83 Queen St. E., Merchants of Green Coffee, 2 Matilda St. and Alternative Grounds Coffee House, 333 Roncesvalles Ave.

The challenge, says Ancheta, is that the filtration rate changes with the ice water’s temperature, so you have to spend the day monitoring the flow.

With all the effort, it costs about twice the price as a regular cup, or $3.99 for a six-ounce cup.

Some coffee aficionados have complained it’s nothing more than a gimmick. “It’s a way of making bad coffee drinkable,” says Ezra Braves, founder of The Espresso Institute of North America and owner of Ezra’s Pound cafés. Other food bloggers and critics have complained of its “strange texture” and “bland taste,” calling it the “Disney version of coffee.”

Still, for some, the sweeter taste is exactly what appeals. “There’s a natural sweetness to it. If you add cream, you don’t really need sugar,” says Geoff Bennett, a barista at Alternative Grounds.

“It’s great for the summer — you get the caffeine kick without the heat.”

Brewing your own

The fancy glass machines cost several hundred dollars, but toddy makers can be as simple as a plastic bucket and a cheesecloth.

You’ll need about 4.5 ounces of coffee for every 8 ounces of water — tap or filtered — avoid softened water. Toddy brings out the berry notes, so it works well with fruity coffees such as those from Eastern Africa.

Pour cold water over coffee and let it sit for 12 hours in a cool space like the fridge.

Once steeped, pour beverage through a regular coffee filter or piece of cheesecloth to filter out the coffee grounds.

To learn more about perfecting the process, Merchants of Green Coffee offers toddy making as part of its monthly brewing classes.