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{Hubz Post} Iced Coffee: Doing it Japanese

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I had spent the first 28 or so years of my life absolutely certain that I was not a coffee drinker and that I would never be a coffee drinker.  I didn’t like hot drinks and I had never had a pleasant tasting coffee.  It was odd, because I did like chocolate covered coffee beans, coffee ice cream and other things with coffee flavour, but could never bring myself to like coffee.  That is, until I attended a Green Mountain Coffee tasting event with Lindsay.  It turns out, I had just never had a good cup of coffee in my life.  Apparently, Tim Hortons and Irving convenience store coffees and coffee drinks were not the best that coffee had to offer.  Now, at 30, I find myself to have become a coffee snob and somewhat of a connoisseur.

There’s nothing I love better in the morning than a nice cup of coffee  ( the darker the better! ).  With this hot summer though, hot coffee isn’t always going to hit the spot and that’s where iced coffee comes into play.  Having grown tired of over-spending on iced coffee that I could never guarantee wasn’t just yesterday’s leftovers thrown in the fridge or something entirely overcooked and done too strong, I needed to find out how to make a good cup of iced coffee on the cheap.  I had made cold pressed iced coffee before with a french press, but we are without a french press and that is an overnight/all day process as it is.  After reading some articles and blogs online, I stumbled across the Japanese method of brewing iced coffee.  This method was done in minutes, doesn’t require any fancy equipment and – most importantly – makes a delicious cup of iced coffee.  It’s been a go to of mine as of late and I decided to document the process one night while I was brewing my latest batch of home brewed beer.  Lindsay asked me to share with you, so here is the process in words and pictures.

What You’ll Need

  • A suitable glass container ( I’ve used a wine carafe and water pitcher, but the Chemex seems to be the most popular choice amongst coffee bloggers)
  • A metal conical coffee filter
  • Equal amount ice to boiling water (1 oz weight of ice is equal to 1 fl oz of water)
  • 1.5-1.8 grams of coarse ground coffee to total fluid oz of water (depending on how strong you like it!)

How You Make It

  1. If you have a grinder, grind your beans on the coarse setting.
  2. Boil some water for the coffee
  3. Weigh out your ice and place it in the glass container.
  4. Measure the water.
  5. Place the filter with the ground coffee on the top of the container.
  6. Slowly pour the boiling water through the grinds in the container.
  7. Make your favourite additions to the iced coffee and enjoy! (I love mine black)

When you are done you will have a great iced coffee with a delicious rich and smooth flavour.  Melting the ice with the coffee allows for the iced coffee to be cooled immediately and without weakening or diluting the brew.  Also, with the coffee being cooled immediately, it prevents the oxidization and loss of flavour that you would have if you allowed a normally brewed pot of coffee to chill over a couple of hours.  The coffee should keep a good flavour for a day or so after you brew it, if you decide to brew a bigger batch.