With exception to the off chance you live in a subterranean, climate controlled bunker and only emerge every six months for snacks and supplies, you’ve noticed something about Richmond; it is Hot.
The waning appeal of a piping hot cup of full-city roast Sulawesi on days reaching 103F and 100% humidity is not lost on me despite the fact that I am a full-frontal coffee-obsessor. This, of course, is how the gods of consumer placation invented iced coffee. I’ll spare everyone the digression into the sordid origins of the coffee concoctions we drink, for now at least, and get on with the subject at hand. So we have iced coffee and we’re going to call it a natural progression in the “need->innovate->consume” train; what is it? Is it any good? How do I know? These are the questions you should be asking yourself before you slap that wad of crumpled one dollar bills on the counter and dig for your ubiquitous loyalty punch card in a zombie-like, caffeine withdrawn stupor. Even drug addicts are discerning about the product, so lets examine this a bit further shall we?
In the coffee production world, there are a myriad of production methods for just about everything. Why? Because coffee nerds are just that, nerds, and if you give them all one simple task (brewing coffee) they will compete to the death for supreme nerdery. This is mostly wonderful for you and I because it gives us innovative options; this, in turn, allows us to become elitist snobs—another digression for another time. So how do we get iced coffee? Well years ago, when I was a young, bright-eyed barista in the omnipresent coffee mogul we had a documented technique. This technique, I have found through years of education and experimentation, sucked. The good news is our friends the coffee nerds have given us techniques that don’t suck, but for better understanding, lets go through the various popular methods of production for iced coffee and expose their pros and cons and hopefully, shine the light on a clear choice for quality results.
Before we dive in we need to talk about extraction. Extraction in the coffee world is simply defined as the process of pulling flavorful oils and microscopic particulate from the roasted coffee bean through exposure to water. The important item to grab from this definition is “flavorful oils”. The particulate is basically just the woody fiber that turns the water brown; flavor-wise you really only get smoky and woody. The oil from the coffee bean is what holds the flavor therefore it is our top priority and it happens to be extremely delicate. Extraction therein becomes the science and art of preserving the coffee oil within each brewing condition.
Old School Beta
Back in the dark ages before Starbucks modified iced coffee production to “less than horrible” means, the method of production for iced coffee was simple; brew coffee into a pitcher, toss it in the refrigerator over night and bam, in the morning you have iced coffee. Even worse, a lot of times you would see people taking old stale coffee at the end of the day and refrigerating it over night for the same effect. I don’t need to explain why that is a horrible foul. So what are the pros for this method? It is easy for the barista—that’s it. Cons? Lets talk oil extraction. Hot water brewing is the most efficient way to extract oils from coffee beans—think about washing olive oil off your hands with hot water versus cold water. However, remember that coffee oil is extremely delicate. One of the best ways to destroy coffee oils is through extreme variance of temperature. Extracting coffee at 200F and chilling it to 41F breaks down the coffee oil molecules thus flattening the flavor and allowing astringent acids also present in the extraction to take over. This equals bitter iced coffee. Briefly, the Starbucks modification to this method was to take extremely deep-roasted (thus lower acidity) coffees and brew them at double strength, which compensates for the broken molecule flatness and the overpowering acidity. I like to call this “fake-n-bake”
Cold Press
Skip over millions of iterations of the technique listed above and you come to cold press iced coffee. Unfortunately, this is chronologically out of order but such is the nature of innovation; sometimes the best isn’t always the last. Popular trends are often misconceived modifications of the gold standard. Yes, it is clear, I am fond of the cold press technique, and with good reason. Cold press is simple; just grind coffee, place it in a vessel, fill vessel with cold filtered water, cover and place in refrigeration for about twenty-four hours, filter coffee grounds out of extracted coffee and serve over ice. Why is this method king? Remember, coffee oils are delicate, especially to change in temperature. In order not to break the oil molecules it is crucial to maintain a consistent temperature throughout the life of the extraction—from first soak to final sip. This keeps the character of the coffee intact and allows the balance of acidity and flavor to interact as it would in a hot application. That would be the pros, the cons are that this process is lengthy and messy for what tends to be a relatively low yield.
Sun Brew
Sun brew is in vogue right now—a fact proven to me by the enthusiastic chatter I’ve read from a local blogger-mogul who loves a good cup of coffee. Sun brew is a riff on the cold press; the idea that following the cold press technique except brewing outside between 85 and 100F instead of the refrigerator, will speed up the brewing time. Yes, the coffee will extract quicker but go back to the simple principals of coffee—no drastic temperature changes. If your extraction falls from 95F to iced (38F) in a matter of seconds when you pour it over ice, you still break the oil molecules and leave room for the acid to take over. In addition, the other bane of coffee stability is bright light so being in the sun is an end product killer.
I know there are countless other techniques out there but I don’t want to write a book just yet. Hopefully some of the science described sheds light on why this is not so much an opinion, but a researched…theory? Ultimately, I want everyone to enjoy amazing cups of coffee, even when it is unbearably hot outside. My recommendation is to venture out, one Saturday morning, to the South of the James Farmer’s Market and try the Blanchard’s Coffee Iced Coffee ($2). This is produced using the cold press method on a grand scale. It is an epic cup of coffee that will refresh and most definitely caffeinate.
