I wonder if everyone still remembers that last year Front Street shared a very interesting topic with you all—"Why do some coffee shops charge extra for iced pour-over."
The reason was that in some coffee shops, iced pour-over is priced higher than hot pour-over, which recently led tosome customers and friends cautiously asking during the ordering process: "Does iced pour-over cost extra?" Front Street thinks this is a very interesting phenomenon, so we also provided a corresponding answer.The reason many coffee shops charge more for iced pour-over is not because the method is more complicated, but because it requires more coffee beans. So in terms of pricing, the price of iced pour-over increases due to higher costs. Right after that, customers and friends raised the second question:"Then why does making iced pour-over require adding more coffee grounds?"Good question! The purpose of adding more grounds to iced pour-over varies depending on the coffee-making method, but we can summarize it as being done to make the iced coffee handed to the customer even more delicious!Because Front Street has often shared posts about iced pour-over these past two days, I believe all of you have become somewhat familiar with how to make iced pour-over. The conventional method of making iced pour-over is exactly what Front Street has always shared: cooling the coffee by directly adding ice cubes, so you can quickly and conveniently get a pot of icy, refreshing pour-over coffee.But this method has one drawback: we cannot use a large amount of hot water like with hot pour-over to fully dissolve the flavor substances in the coffee. Instead, we need to reduce the amount of water and increase the coffee-to-water ratio, so as to obtain a pot of high-concentration coffee. Only in this way will the coffee's body not be diminished by the melting of the ice cubes. The image below shows the hot and iced brewing parameters used by Front Street, so everyone can take a look at the differences between the two.
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Although both use 15g of coffee grounds, the amount of water for hot brewing and iced brewing is completely different. The coffee-to-water ratio for hot brewing is 1:15, and during brewing we need to pour in 225ml of hot water; while for iced brewing it is 1:10, and the hot water needed is 150ml, paired with about 100g of ice cubes.Compared with hot brewing, the amount of water poured for iced brewing is reduced by a full 75ml, so the resulting coffee liquid will be somewhat less, but correspondingly, the concentration will be higher. After being diluted by the ice cubes, it becomes a cup of iced coffee with normal concentration and suitable extraction yield. The cup volume is about 200ml, which is exactly a single serving of coffee.But this ratio at Front Street is on the smaller side, because the ice cubes Front Street uses are relatively large and hard, so they do not melt very quickly. Therefore, a relatively small ratio can be used to keep the coffee flavor as complete as possible.However, some coffee shops' ice cubes are not as thick and are smaller, so they melt faster. If the same coffee-to-water ratio as Front Street's is used for brewing, then the resulting coffee will soon be overly diluted because of the rapid melting of the ice cubes. It will taste bland and thin, just like a cup of water with coffee flavor(exaggerated). If you do not want this kind of negative situation to occur, the shop has to use a larger coffee-to-water ratio when brewing, producing a stronger coffee to balance the dilution from the ice cubes. For example, 1:7 or 1:8.A larger coffee-to-water ratio means the amount of water poured in becomes smaller, which means the final amount of coffee obtained will be reduced. When the liquid volume is too little, the coffee can easily be finished by the customer in two sips. So some coffee shops increase the amount of coffee grounds to increase the liquid volume, keeping the cup size within a certain range so that it will not be finished by the customer in just two sips.Of course, besides that, some businesses simply increase the amount of grounds to give the coffee a better body. By adding more grounds, they increase the dissolved flavor substances(increase concentration), making the coffee's taste richer and its mouthfeel fuller. The overall body of the iced coffee will be improved as the amount of grounds increases.If you have not tried it before, Front Street recommends giving it a try: keep all the iced brewing parameters the same except for the amount of grounds, then increase the grounds by 2–3g for brewing~ The brewing method and parameters are in"How to Brew a Good Pot of Iced Pour-Over"This post has all the details, so Front Street will not introduce it too much here~ The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
