It's hawt - lets get cool with cold coffee
Summer's here - time for refreshment.
It’s Thursday and I’m not really sure what the outlook is, your guess is as good as mine. One thing I do know, how hot!
I thought this was as good as a time as any to share the best ways to enjoy coffee when it’s hot.
Before I do though, my last post, a Specialty Coffee Tour of Hawke’s Bay, got some *cough* interesting *cough* feedback, particularly on the Hawkes Bay NZ Facebook page. People are pretty passionate about their fav coffee spots!
I got so much advice, I went back to the Bay last week to try nine of the suggested coffee spots. Only three are worth a mention, so keep an eye out for part deux of the coffee tour - out next week.
Anyway…
Get cool – drink coffee
Cold brew, cold drip, cold coffee, iced coffee – all magic things that can make us happy. But what’s the best way to get cold coffee? Does it taste good? Do you need any magic kit?
Here are my five favorite ways of getting, or making, cold coffee. In order of least to most effort! Something for everyone.
TL;DR:
1. Buy cold brew from a supermarket! Yum
2. Buy cold brew from a café! Moar yum.
3. Make it at home with no fancy toys – it’s super easy
4. Make it at home with your favorite pour over method
5. Go full nerd and nitro your own coffee
Oh, and add gin and tonic to any cold coffee for an even better time!
1 – Buy it! From a shop
Well, that’s super easy right? Just buy it.
There’s heaps of iced coffee or cold coffee on the market. Most of it is full of sugar, to mask the bad coffee, and pretty gross. I should know, I’ve tried a lot of them. However, these ones are tasty, cheap, and accessible:
Minor Figures –Mocha and Latte in a can – from Countdown supermarkets nationwide (and others). Yum, easy to get, and recommended by Logan from Mojo.
Slow Joe – Nitro Cold Brew – the best new cold brew on the market (I had a chat with the Slow Joe team and they are just the best – article coming soon!). Available from Fix & Fogg peanut butterys (nut butterys? nutterys??) in Wellington and Auckland (or DM me and I’ll source some for ya).
2 – Buy it! From a café
Feel the need for cold coffee, but want to share it with frems? Hit up your local café for some cold brew or a cold flat white.
Here’s a few of my favorites right now:
Flight Coffee - The Hanger (Wellington) – Summer browns all day baby!
Mojo The Beanery (Wellington) – their Nitro Cold Brew is off the chain
Sparrows Coffee from Third Eye (Napier) – Cold black coffee on ice on a 30 degree Napier day? What more do you need!
3 – Make it at home – the easy edition
You can make excellent cold coffee yourself, without expensive new equipment. If you have a fridge, access to water and some sort of jug/bowl/tin/plunger you’re sorted.
The key thing here is having quality coffee. Jump online or go to your local roaster and ask for something great for cold coffee. Get them to grind it – medium/course – and then chuck some in a jug, add water, and leave it in your fridge overnight.
Carefully pour it out (through a paper filter if you have them, or a paper towel), being sure not to get too many grinds in there, and then serve over ice.
70g coffee
850g water
24 hours
Enjoy
4 – Make it at home – the pour over edition
Some people (*cough* James Hoffman) don’t like cold brew coffee. They think that using cold water to make coffee doesn’t get the most out of the coffee you’re using.
Sure, world barista champions probably have a good idea on what’s good, but I still enjoy cold brew made with cold water.
However, you can make cold coffee, using HOT water, using your v60, kalita wave or aeropress. And, it is definitely better.
It’s as simple as brewing it over ice and cooling it quickly - aka Flash Cooling.
The benefit is that the hot water gets all of the tasty bits out of the coffee, so the final drink is delicious, sweet, balanced, and refreshing.
The best ones I’ve tried are:
5 – Make it at home – too much effort edition
Go hard or go home. Full send. Get nerdy and make your own nitro coffee. At home. Cos you can.
This one needs a bit of equipment, but totally worth it if you like nitro coffee.
Nitro coffee is cold coffee with nitrogen gas infused into it. The resulting coffee has the same taste as normal cold brew (IMO), but an amazingly full and smooth texture. It’s almost like a stout in terms of it’s body and texture. Amazing.
So, how do you get nitrogen into coffee? Cream whippers.
My decent down this particular hole was inspired by the team at European Coffee Trip.
I got this awesome cream whipper from Canistro, that uses nitrous oxide (NO2 or NOS) to make whipped cream for my scones at home (honest), to infuse vodka with great new flavors, and defo not to do the other things kids do with nags.
Now, the nitrous oxide wont make nitro coffee - its the wrong gas - you need nitrogen gas for that – luckily, ikegger, a home brew supplier in Auckland, sells nitrogen canisters that fit these cream whippers!! They were hard to find but worth the effort!
It makes amazing nitro coffee.
Put your cold brew in the bottle, smash in two nitrogen bulbs and bang, you get some amazing nitrogen cold brew, complete with this mad cascade effect.
Cold coffee for your hot body. Sort of rhymes, so it must be true.
Hollah at me if you try some of these great cold brew options, and if you have friends that are absolutely melting in this heat, share this with them. You never know, they might just make you one.
Chur.
TMR