Brewed awakenings: The story behind Nightjar's creative cold brews
Cup of joe anyone?
In a town that loves coffee, appreciating the flavours in your cup of Joe is a point of pride to many, but for Leon Surynt, it’s an obsession.
For some years, the owner of Nightjar and self-proclaimed coffee geek has been sourcing, brewing and infusing cold brew and herbals to create delicious concoctions for the adventurous cafeliers.
What’s On met up with Leon over a delicious cup of cold brew…
Coffee on tap. How did this all begin?
I travelled across the US, the Netherlands and Germany and became inspired by the technological processes of the craft beer industry. It’s been a long road, but we’ve created a lovely range of flavours, from cold brew coffee to oolong green and assam tea concoctions.
Is it a complicated process?
It sounds very scientific, but I love it. We bulk ‘cold brew’ in our off-site production area, each to a specific recipe, then nitro infuse into our special ‘bag-in-keg’ system. We’ve created this box that chills the product, then we inject more nitrogen at the tap so that it produces a super foaming, cascading drink that looks like a shaken cocktail or ale.
Does it taste very different to an average coffee?
The extraction of the coffee flavour is totally different when a long, slow, cold full immersion technique is used as opposed to heat and pressure in a coffee machine. It’s gentler, but softly punches you with caffeine over time.
What made you so interested in cold brew?
A few years ago I was inspired by a coffee roastery bar in Austin, which had wicked cocktails and draft coffee on tap. It was a vibrant city, where people partied with non-alcoholic drinks. Transporting this to Dubai was a no-brainer, but creating perfect concoctions has taken years.
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What are your most popular flavours at the moment?
The OG cold brew nitro coffee. But the Jaffa Cake orange cold brew is not far behind.
What’s the feedback been like from customers?
They love it. The Emirates has a diverse culture of mixed nationalities and religions. There’s also a generational shift where young, intelligent consumers want to kick back but don’t need to drink alcohol exclusively to have fun. Ultimately, we hope that our signature taps become the preferred ‘social juice’ that you want in your glass.
Alserkal Avenue, Tue to Sat 9am to 10pm, Sun and Mon 9am to 6pm. nightjar.coffee
Images: What’s On