The Perfect Cup of Iced Coffee: All You Need to Know

Learn all about iced coffee - what it is, how it's made, and how to make sure you get a perfect cup every time!

The Perfect Cup of Iced Coffee: All You Need to Know

As the summer heat waves hit, it's likely that a cup of iced coffee or a cold brew has graced your hands in recent weeks. There's nothing like that first sip touching your tongue before a long weekday in summer. But what is iced coffee and is it meant to be sweet?Iced coffee is a broad term. It can refer to two methods of making coffee - both of which use hot water to extract the delicious flavors from the beans.

The most obvious way is to cut it with cold water and ice to make iced coffee, but you can also add hot water, milk, sparkling water, or any other liquid that you would like to mix it with. A single large iced coffee in some stores can easily send you more than 200 milligrams of caffeine. McLaughlin, who has been working in the cafe since he was 15 and is the owner of Cleveland-based Golden Triangle Coffee, said in his video that it is a chemical reaction that causes coffee that was once hot and has turned cold to disgusting. He explained that coffee that cools quickly, such as iced coffee, which means that coffee doesn't have time to cool naturally (which is when lactone breaks down) or cold brew, which is never hot, usually don't have those same chemical reactions because there's no starting point for the fault occurs. Heat causes aromas to come out of coffee over time, he added, noting that iced coffees keep aromas intact. If you want to prevent your iced coffee from becoming watery, it's best to prepare a batch of coffee the night before and put it in the fridge overnight.

This will force the coffee to cool down immediately instead of letting it cool in the refrigerator for a while. Natural aromas have plenty of time to fade and the liquid coffee itself undergoes some chemical changes during the long process. The best way to fix this is to cool the coffee in the refrigerator or use the double brew method. This method involves brewing two batches of coffee - one with hot water and one with cold water - and then combining them together. This will ensure that your iced coffee has all the flavor and aroma of hot brewed coffee without any of the bitterness. The refreshing sensation of iced coffee is second to none, and there is something about it that feels more decadent than hot coffee.

Sometimes, McLaughlin said, chemical change can taste good for some people if the coffee is of better quality. I hope these answered questions about iced coffee will help you prepare better coffee at home and also learn the ins and outs of ordering iced coffee at your favorite coffee shop. There's a lot I love about iced coffee and iced coffee, but that doesn't mean you like both.

Glenna Matthys
Glenna Matthys

Hardcore internet practitioner. Wannabe beer advocate. Infuriatingly humble beer expert. Devoted coffee evangelist. Hardcore social media scholar. Friendly beer fanatic.