Why the ‘best cold brew you’ve ever tasted’ (and it’s brewer) are found only in KC

Tucked in your neighborhood grocer’s cooler waits an otherworldly cold brew — the smoothest this side of the twilight zone. And it can only be found in Kansas City. For now.

Jacq Adamson, Long Lost Cold Brew; photo courtesy of afloat

“I take my craft really seriously and I taste every batch. If it’s not right, it doesn’t go out. It’s really important to me that the quality is consistent,” said Jacq Adamson, the founder and brewer behind Long Lost Cold Brew, a KC-brewed brand available exclusively through home delivery and select retail outlets.

She credits the brew’s unique characteristics — “It’s really smooth and rich with notes of chocolate and hazelnut at the end,” Adamson described — to a proprietary filtration process and a critical partnership with Marcell Coffee Projects.

Click here to learn more about the origins of Long Lost Cold Brew or to shop online.

“Depending on how you look at it, coffee is really exciting right now,” she said. “There’s a lot of big changes coming — from how people are looking at how things are produced due to climate change and even COVID, political unrest and stuff like that — how that affects coffee shipment and how we look at it.”

“I’m excited to be a part of that journey and learn how I can do my part to contribute to being more sustainable and more conscious about our consumption of this very great, but challenging substance.”

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Long Lost Cold Brew; Photo by Rachael Jane

The vision for Long Lost Cold Brew’s branding came to Adamson in a dream — literally, she recalled. 

“[A graphic designer] had given me a couple of designs and none of them were really working for me. I woke up one day and was like, ‘I want this sort of Twilight Zone thing going on,’” she said, referencing the company’s aesthetic which is intended to communicate the “out of this world” experience of the Long Lost product. 

“It’s sort of like you’re going to the next level,” Adamson added.

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First taste of KC

Adamson arrived in Kansas City in early 2020 — hopeful to brew a career in event planning that could support her and her young daughter.

“It became pretty clear that just wasn’t going to happen,” she laughed, detailing her experience amid the earliest days of the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis and how it ultimately pushed her into the position of founder, eager to build something meaningful in her new city. 

“With the exception of one short job, I’ve only worked in beverages,” Adamson explained. “Whether it’s been coffee shops or bartending in New York … I’ve always been interested in the beverage [industry].” 

So, with the world on pause and her coffee pot percolating, Adamson got to work drafting a business plan for what would become Long Lost Cold Brew — or, the best cold brew ever tasted, she teased. 

“I was wanting to open a little coffee shop and cafe. When everything hit, I took the one thing that I thought I could do pretty well — which was cold brew — and started with that,” Adamson recalled, noting she launched the business with the help of her friend, Johnny Eastlund.

Delivered straight to the door of customers, Long Lost Cold Brew was up and running by April 2020. It’s been delighting customers metrowide ever since. 

“People were excited to see a new product,” she said, noting success with pop-up shops and markets in addition to home delivery. “Most commonly people tell me that they don’t have to add — or add as much cream in as they normally do for regular cold brew.” 

The company has also partnered with the afloat gifting app — one of Startland News’ 10 Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2022 — as well as Market Wagon, Cashew Creamery, and a growing list of wholesale and retail partners that include Nature’s Own Health Food Market, Kind Food, The Pairing, The Market at Meadowbrook, and Big Mood Natural Wines. 

The coffee is also used as an ingredient in products of Dream Cream, a locally-baked vegan dessert company.

Long Lost Cold Brew; photo by Zach Bauman

Long Lost Cold Brew; Startland News photo

The next pour

As the business continues to scale,  Adamson hopes to double down on manufacturing and wholesale operations. 

“I’d love to be a national brand — but, obviously I’ve got quite a bit of work before I get there. I’d like to have a much bigger presence and a much bigger product line,” she said, adding that at the heart of it all she just loves coffee and everything about it. 

With the brand’s focus on sustainability, not only could Long Lost Cold Brew help grind change within the coffee industry, it could set an example for Adamson’s daughter, she said. 

“It’s really important to me to build something for my daughter. I had this moment, when she was born, where I was like, ‘When she goes to school, is she going to be proud of me,’” Adamson recalled, referencing a period of time where she’d moved in with her parents and taken on a waitressing job to save money. 

“I really wanted to make something for her and [so] that she could see that anything’s possible — that you can go out and figure out how to make something happen.”

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This story is possible thanks to support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a private, nonpartisan foundation that works together with communities in education and entrepreneurship to create uncommon solutions and empower people to shape their futures and be successful.

For more information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn