Why is iced coffee priced higher than hot coffee?

Iced coffee often costs more than hot coffee because the drink uses the same beans plus ice and extra labor, and the ice must chill the liquid down to roughly 5 to 10 degrees Celsius. If all the ice melts completely, the coffee returns to room temperature and the taste suffers, so the ratio of coffee, water, and ice has to be set carefully.

Light to medium roasted beans with fruity acidity, such as those from Ethiopia, Panama, Colombia, and Costa Rica, work well for iced pour-over, and natural, honey, or anaerobic lots keep their aroma when chilled. Grind size is adjusted finer to compensate, and alternatives to adding ice directly include passing the coffee over ice or cooling it in an ice bath.

Why is iced coffee often sold at a higher price than hot coffee? Drawing on Front Street Coffee's production experience, this article sorts out two core questions about iced pour-over coffee: how to determine the coffee-to-water-to-ice ratio, and what difference it makes whether ice is added first or last. It also introduces the types of coffee beans suitable for making iced pour-over, and gives Front Street's specific product recommendations, including Fruit Dingding, Huakui, Little Tomato, Flower Butterfly, Xizhua, and Strawberry Candy. The article also explains the necessity of adjusting the grind size, as well as two alternative cooling methods—the ice-passing method and the ice-bath cooling method—making it suitable for coffee enthusiasts to reference in practice.

Recently, quite a few customers at Front Street have been ordering iced pour-over. During the brewing process, people often raise similar questions. Front Street has summarized them into two core points: First, how much should the coffee-to-water ratio be set at, and how much ice should be added? Second, is there really any difference between adding ice first and adding it last?

What coffee beans are suitable for iced pour-over?

As the saying goes, if you choose the right beans, the cup of coffee is more than half a success. When making iced pour-over, Front Street usually selects beans with a light to medium roast and fruity acidity, and tends to favor origins such as Ethiopia, Panama, Colombia, and Costa Rica. Most of these coffees have undergone natural, honey, or anaerobic fermentation processing, and when made into an iced drink, their aroma stands out and the mouthfeel is especially refreshing.

If you prefer a floral-style iced pour-over, Front Street Fruit Dingding and Front Street Huakui are the top choices; for an iced coffee with a full juice-like body, you can choose Front Street Little Tomato and Front Street Flower Butterfly; if you are after a rich fruity flavor, Front Street Xizhua and Front Street Strawberry Candy are worth trying.

-How much ice should be added?

The job of ice in iced pour-over is to cool down the hot coffee, so the amount used must at least be enough to bring the coffee liquid down to 5 to 10 degrees Celsius. But there is a contradiction here: if all the ice melts completely, the coffee liquid will return to room temperature, and the taste will suffer greatly. Therefore, Front Street's approach is that after the coffee liquid has already cooled, a small amount of ice should still remain in the cup to maintain the low temperature.

For the iced coffee produced by Front Street, the ratio of coffee grounds, total water, and ice is 1:10:6.7. Taking 15 grams of grounds as an example, the total pouring water is 150 milliliters, and then 100 grams of hard ice cubes are added. After brewing is finished, stir or shake repeatedly to cool the coffee liquid quickly. When the temperature falls within the 5 to 10 degree range, the iced coffee is ready, and at this point a few unmelted ice cubes are still floating in the liquid.

Because the coffee liquid itself is already at a very low temperature, the remaining ice cubes will melt noticeably more slowly, so there is no need to worry about the coffee being diluted into something weak and bland.

(Note: Iced coffee uses less pouring water. To avoid losing too much of the extracted flavor compounds, other parameters need to be adjusted accordingly. The simplest approach is to make the grind size finer.)

-Add ice first or add ice last

Next, let's discuss the second question—the order in which ice is added. Adding ice first means placing ice in the sharing pitcher in advance before brewing begins, with the characteristic that the coffee liquid starts cooling as soon as it drips into the pitcher. Adding ice last means brewing the coffee first, then adding ice, or pouring it directly into a cup containing ice, with the characteristic that the coffee liquid first fully blends and then cools as a whole.

Front Street previously conducted a set of controlled experiments. The two groups of coffee were brewed at almost the same time, with one group using the add-ice-first method and the other using the add-ice-last method. After thorough stirring and even cooling, the two were then compared to see whether there was any difference in flavor.

The conclusion is: the difference in flavor between these two cups of coffee is not obvious and is almost negligible. If one must point out a difference, the cup with ice added first appears cleaner and more refreshing, while the cup with ice added last has a more concentrated and richer aroma, with a bit more layering in the drinking experience.

Of course, besides directly adding ice to dilute and cool the coffee, there are two relatively luxurious methods of rapid cooling. The first is called the ice-passing method: first brew a cup of relatively concentrated coffee, then let it pass repeatedly through ice 2 to 3 times to achieve the cooling effect. In this way, the dilution effect on coffee concentration caused by ice melting into water is much smaller than with directly adding ice.

The second is the ice-bath cooling method. Pour the brewed hot coffee into a shaker, then place the shaker in ice and rotate it quickly to cool it. The advantage of this method is that it does not dilute the coffee concentration, and therefore does not interfere with the coffee's original flavor and mouthfeel.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.