A nozzle is pressed and dark liquid streams into a cup. Foam appears at the top, but the drink isn’t beer—it’s coffee.
This innovative concoction is called nitro coffee and has been available at The Cup for about four months. It may not be brand new, but it’s still a novelty in Muncie.
The Village business might have been the second place in Indiana to serve nitro coffee, said Kyle Raines, who is a general manager at The Cup.
The Cup installed a system behind their counter to create the coffee. A double tap runs down to three kegerators, which normally function as draft beer dispensers.
The kegerators are filled with cold steep espresso running through a nitrogen tank. The coffee and nitrogen interact for about 48 hours and the pressure creates a nitrogenous liquid.
Nitro coffee’s origins are hazy, but Cuvee Coffee, a shop in Austin, Texas, started offering the drink in 2012.
The Cup employees found out about nitro coffee through the Internet, but a customer also mentioned nitro coffee after hearing about it during a visit to Texas.
“After doing more research, we had everything installed within three days," Raines said.
The Cup has sold three to four half-barrel kegs, or 46.5 to 62 gallons-worth of nitro coffee since it installed the equipment.
“Most of the people who are trying it for the first time get a look of surprise on their face and get really excited about it,” said Brandon Shawver, another manager at The Cup. “When they taste it, that they didn’t expect it to be as good as it is. It has changed a lot of people’s opinions on cold brew actually.”
Other Muncie coffee shops plan to add nitro coffee to their menu in the future.
“We will be offering it at our next location and we will be retrofitting the first one eventually, we just haven’t gotten there yet,” said Frank Reber, owner of The Caffeinery in downtown Muncie.
The Caffeinery also wants to formulate a certain blend of coffee that compliments the nitrogen before they offer it to their customers, he said.
Meanwhile, The Cup has been experimenting with different flavors of nitro coffee.
“As far as just the nitro coffee goes, we find it is very good on its own,” Raines said. “Standard flavors that work with it are chocolate, vanilla, hazelnut, and caramel. The flavor aspect of nitro coffee isn’t that broad right now. We play around with different ideas here to keep things fresh.”
Nitro coffee isn’t the only thing that makes The Cup different.
“The Cup is special because we don’t just sell coffee, we sell an attitude,” said Martin George, the owner of The Cup. “We’re a place where people connect with people.”
The business takes pride in the community, food, and of course—coffee, he said.
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