Iced coffee is a point of contention within my family. Some like it, some scoff at it. For a long time, I was in the camp of scoffing. I thought there was no real point in iced coffee. There have been times where I have tasted such coffee and tasted nothing but bitter. So, In my mind, there was no point in brewing with the purpose of having it over ice. What I failed to realize is that I had tasted iced coffee that was simply brewed incorrectly.

As I researched coffee, brewing techniques, styles, and types. I discovered pour over iced coffee. Let me be clear, this is not cold brew. This is pour over coffee with ice in mind. This kind of coffee is called Japanese-Style iced coffee because, it was popularized by Japanese culture. It simply means brewing hot coffee as you would with a pour over into a serving craft with ice. This chills the coffee quickly, but also allows the pour over to extract as much flavor as possible via hot water.

Adding ice into the mix complicates the coffee ratio slightly by adding another variable. An article by Methodical Coffee suggests a ratio of 1:10:6. One part coffee, 10 parts water, six parts ice (in the craft). It is also recommended to serve in a glass or mug with ice in order to continue chilling the coffee.  What I noticed through observation and critical thinking was when adding parts ice and water together you get 16. 1:16 is suggested to be the golden ratio for coffee. So in theory, iced coffee ratios could work for all ratios as long as the water and ice parts add up to whatever ratio you desire. In my case, I stuck to 1:19. So, for iced coffee I used 1:13:6. I thought it best not to go below 6 parts ice. In essence, we are brewing a condensed pour over coffee, letting the ice cool the brew and make up the rest of the ratio.

The first time I tried this, I tasted nothing but bitter. The very thing I hate about iced coffee. This told me there was a user error with the pour over or the grind was off.  So, I researched some more. What I discovered is with iced coffee, the grind should be a few settings coarser than used for a normal pour over. My normal pour over for this batch of beans is around 7.5 on the Opus. So, I increased that setting one full notch to 8.5 and tried again. What I found was the iced coffee was more flavorful and less bitter at this setting. Dare I say. The coffee was actually good. I could taste the notes the roaster suggested were there in the iced version of the brew. I call that a success.

It seems iced coffee can be just as flavorful as regular coffee when brewed correctly. That is the key phrase- when brewed correctly. Regular hot coffee is still my favorite type of coffee but, it is nice to know I can brew an equally good iced coffee when the mood strikes or the temperature requires.

Till Next We Meet.