It’s still summer, and you still yearn for iced coffees. They are the rage right now, and everyone is enjoying the theatrics of giant ice brew towers of coffee seen at many trendy cafes.
We just recently featured our Ice Coffee Tower How To, that shows off a (slightly) miniaturized version of those cafe ice brew towers. But that is not the only device available for brewing slow drip iced coffee. Hario has had a device, called the Hario Pota Ice Dripper, for a long time now that does the job, and brews iced coffee in a much smaller footprint.
Even better, the Hario Pota looks awesome. It’s available in three finishes; a steel finish, a brass finish, and the one we’re using here, with a copper finish. All the details and build are first rate, and it looks great on the counter.
Ice brew results in a pretty mellow cup of concentrated coffee elixir. The brews are usually concentrated and require water and ice to bring the resulting cup down to a normal-strength cold brew beverage. This brewing method usually results in very mellow, very muted acids (pretty much undetectable), and a nice rounded body taste.
Unfortunately, this brewing method tends to obliterate most specific taste nuances in various types of single origin coffees: the resulting brew usually just tastes like “coffee”.
With all that said, you still want to use a very good quality roasted coffee with this brewing method. We’ve found that using grocery-store whole beans or pre-ground commodity coffee results in a pretty stinky brew. Using a good middle-of-the-road specialty coffee that is freshly roasted (within 10 days or less) always gives us the best cup.
This brewing method takes a long time. It can take between 3 and 5 hours (or longer) to complete a brew cycle. The coffee does keep in the fridge for at least a day though without much discernible loss in quality, so all summer long you can do a brew, and drink yesterday’s brew from the refrigerator.
The Hario Pota’s glass bottom can serve as a serving / storage vessel as well, though it does not come with its own lid (you can, awkwardly, use the top ice chamber’s lid with the bottom vessel, however).
Also if you’re looking for a much more in depth discussion on Iced Coffee and Espresso Theory, we wrote an extensive article on the subject.
Mark has certified as a Canadian, USA, and World Barista Championship Judge in both sensory and technical fields, as well as working as an instructor in coffee and espresso training. He started CoffeeGeek in 2001.
