During these dog days of summer, iced coffee seems to be the rage and there are few better theatrics for coffee brewing than the Japanese-styled iced coffee dripper tower that seem to be popping up in more and more cafes in North America. The good news is, you can bring this brewing method home if you like and have the exact same style of coffee.
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”.
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.
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.
