Ice in my Veins
While I was overseas (Japan and Hawaii) I was able to get a wonderfully refreshing drink that was perfect for beating the heat: an ice coffee. Now I'm not talking a blended ice and milk frappe-shit-o. I mean, quite simply, a double shot of black coffee served ice cold.
There is some debate about whether it is better to pour the hot coffee over the ice or add ice to the shot. In my opinion the former is preferred as it should create less water. Of course cold-brewed is considered the best as it makes sugar unnecessary. Although with sugar (and not cold-brewed) the coffee gets a wonderful bitter-sweet taste that you don’t get with the milky versions.
Why is it so refreshing? Caffeine promotes blood circulation and if that caffeine is ice cold then you get cold blood (can you tell I sucked at biology?).
So last weekend when it was stupid-hot I decided to start my adventure in drinking ice coffees in New Zealand.
Read on after the jump
Mojo, Bond St
After explaining basically what I wanted ("no, not blended ice with milk") I sat down to wait. It arrived in a short ice-filled glass and was perfect. Well almost, but that was my fault. I forgot to tell them to dissolve sugar in the coffee before putting it on the ice. See sugar doesn’t dissolve in cold water like it does in hot; places that regularly serve ice coffee should have simple syrup.
Oh well, I’d give it a 4/5. It was the barista’s first ice coffee so I was quite impressed.
The Lido
I kind of expected a bit more from the Lido really. I received a flat white cup with cold coffee and two small ice cubes floating in it. And when I say cold I don’t mean "ice cold", I mean just the cool side of tepid.
Not impressed, 1/5
Scopa
"Aha!!" I thought, "Scopa will give me a good ice coffee". What was I basing this on? In hindsight I’m not actually sure. I ordered an "iced espresso" and left it at that, given that there was no question from the guy at the counter (all the other places wanted more info).
He brought over a tall, icy, cream-topped something. I apologised and asked for the correct drink. He took the abomination away and brought me a perfect ice coffee.
Fuel (by Midland Park)
The girl was a little confused as I didn’t realise they already had ice lattes on their menu and asked for an iced short black (hedging my bets after the last attempt). "It won’t fit in our short black cup", that’s ok put it in a standard cup. "So you still want a double?" yes please. She added sugar to the hot coffee without asking, which was ok with me, but others might mind, so watch out.
The coffee had a perfect flavour and temperature, 5/5. This is about as good as you’re gonna get.
I’ll try a few more places over the next few weeks but feel free to leave comments if you’ve tried a good one.
I'm beyond a heretic
because I've found the only consistent iced coffee is one via starbucks.
Don't get their iced lattes tho, they are just god awful.
Personally I'm fond of an ice peppermint mocha - which possibly doesn't even count as a coffee but more as a flavoured beverage.
I found this New York Times article about iced coffee. Apparently the secret is to cold brew it - no heat means no bitterness and no need for sugar. Hmm.
Personally, I'm more fond of iced tea. (Which reminds me of the worst iced tea I've ever had - it was really milky and had a whole lot of whipped cream piled on top. WTF?)
But when hot weather hits, really, anything with ice is nice.
I'm laying down some cold brew before bed tonight. Just the thing for my birthday tomorrow.
Jules: not evil at all, in fact I might just try that.
Robyn: We've currently got a peach ice tea thing going on at home, very nice. And your article is the same as the one I've got linked to under "cold brewed" but with different urls. Weird.
Oh my, do I have history with ice coffee. In Cambodia, three years ago, I drank so many iced coffees (served with sweetened condensed milk) at my guesthouse that the staff nicknamed me Eyes Milk Coffee. I would order two at once, drink the first one in one gulp, laze over the second one and be wired for hours afterwards. I was never able to replicate the exact same thing when I moved into an apartment - and would often wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about how nice it would be to hold a cold glass of ice milk coffee to my cheek.
Oh My god! You are playing my song! I found it so hard to find anywhere thatvthat does a proper "coffee with ice" that I make it at home on the weekends as not to bother any cafe staff by being "High maintenece".
On a recent hot day that didn't fly so my approach was to ask for a double shot of espresso over a glass of ice with trim milk, which worked beautifully:)
Otherwise, I get either blank stares or eye rolls if I ask for it any other way.
All hail the Ice coffee **
** without syrup or ice cream, just ice!
I drank many ice coffees in New York last year over summer. Ice coffees and polish donuts...mmmmm. I don't mind that it seems impossible to get the same thing here though as I'm sure it wouldn't taste as good without being accompanied by that sweaty, dirty subway smell. I didn't have a single decent 'hot coffee' in America.
Their real name is paczki. They're jam-filled, sugary balls of deliciousness, but much easier to just call them Polish donuts.
OK, I can report that cold-brew coffee is very acceptable, but not as markedly superior as the NYT would have you believe. I think a cold double shot would work just as well as a base.
Hadyn: those jelly doughnuts are also known as sufganiyot if you're Israeli. Make your own.
Call a heretic but I quite like my iced coffee (black of course) with a squeeze of lemon...
Am I evil?