Best Coffee For Iced Coffee – What Coffee To Use For Iced Coffee?

Last updated on October 24th, 2023 at 19:47

At Latte Love Brew, we believe in the Ferrari principle. If you want the best coffee, you need to use the best ingredients. To make the best iced coffee, you really need to use the best coffee for iced coffee. 

By the time you have finished reading this article, you will know what the best coffee to use to brew this special and rather delicious coffee.

Keep reading as we dig down and detail this particular coffee and get you making coffee shop-quality iced coffee at home.

What Is Iced Coffee?

Iced coffee is an excellent coffee that is enjoyed by many coffee lovers, particularly during the summer months. It’s a refreshing coffee drink that is served cold.

More often than not, iced coffee is brewed hot with sweeteners and flavoring added (if required by the coffee drinker) before cooling with ice.

Read: What is the strongest coffee

Best Coffee for Iced Coffee – What Coffee To Use For Iced Coffee?

Use a full-bodied coffee bean to avoid that unwanted tartness. If you want an iced coffee with a creamy, sweet, chocolate flavor profile, use a medium roast.

Coffee from Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Sumatra are excellent here. You will end up with an excellent and tasty coffee over ice that is almost like a cream soda.

For a very refreshing tea-like iced coffee with refreshing fruity and floral notes, I advise that you use Kenyan, Ethiopian or Tanzanian coffee beans.

If you want to make your iced coffee that is on par with barista-made iced coffee quality, I strongly suggest that you use a coffee scale to get the exact coffee to water ratio and weigh both your water and beans.

Read: Sweetest coffee

What Is The Best Roast For Iced Coffee?

For the best-tasting coffee, you will need to use fresh coffee beans. Ideally, your coffee beans will have been roasted no longer than 7 days previously. The best roast for a tasty iced coffee is a medium to dark roast.

Investing in a proper and professional coffee canister with an airtight lid and one-way valve will help you to keep your coffee beans in the optimal condition. Storing that canister in your freezer will keep them fresher for longer.

This is a lovely “coffee secret” used by all coffee geeks.

What Is Flash Cold Brew Iced Coffee?

Flash cold brew or flash brewed iced coffee, Japanese Iced coffee and Kyoto iced coffee al all the same thing. It is a very fabulous way to enjoy an iced coffee and can be described as a hybrid combination of cold brew, pour over and iced coffee.

It can be a test of patience to enjoy it fresh, depending on the drip rate.

You brew a hot pour over coffee that captures the high temperature coffee compounds and tastes of coffee from your coffee grounds. It then drips over ice and “flash” cools it hence the name “flash cold brew”. Being invented in Japan, it is also known as Japanese flash cold brew.

The result is a cool, cold iced coffee that is less acidic, nice and cold as it drips over the ice. If you enjoy your coffee black, you might lean more towards this method of brewing your iced coffee.

How To Brew The Best Coffee For Iced Coffee

Let’s get straight to this simple and straightforward, no-fail iced coffee recipe and get you making a delicious cup of coffee.

What You Will Need

• Filtered, bottled or distilled water.
• A coffee maker, any one will do, a French press is highly recommended.
• Milk and sweetener as desired.
• Optional, cocktail shaker and or ice maker.
• Dark roasted coffee beans or medium roasted coffee beans as per your preference.

Instructions

Start with fresh high quality medium or dark roast coffee beans. Whole beans are preferred for best results. Grind your coffee beans immediately before you brew them.

If you are using your French press, which will produce the best results, use a coarse and even grind size. Brew your cup of coffee as you normally would.

Once your coffee is perfectly brewed, you can either decant it and store it in the fridge to cool it down and enjoy it later or add ice to cool it down and enjoy it straight away. Add your sugar and milk while your coffee is hot to allow it to mix better.

To cool your coffee down quicker and enjoy drinking it immediately without the ice diluting your coffee, add your freshly made and freshly brewed hot coffee to a cocktail shaker with a couple of ice cubes.

Shake your cocktail shaker for a minute or two to accelerate the cooling down of your coffee. Pour into a tall glass with ice and viola, you have an excellent and very well brewed iced coffee.

I call this technique the Italian shakerato technique! Your resulting coffee will look amazing and frothy. If you want to go a step further, you can brew extra coffee and make ice cubes with it.

If you are at all like me, on a hot summer day you will slowly sip and enjoy the taste of an iced coffee without the ice diluting the brew!

Iced coffee is very tasty, and very enjoyable. I suggest that you make the effort and brew an amazing coffee with the most exotic coffees that you can find and don’t let those water ice cubes spoil it.

Use either the Italian Shakerato technique or iced coffee ice cubes to cool it down. Better still, use both.

Homemade Iced Coffee Hacks And Tips

Most of the advice here might seem to be a little obvious. Often, when brewing coffee at home we don’t quite get the same coffee shop experience in terms of taste despite using great coffee beans.

The most common culprits are not using fresh coffee beans or keeping your coffee beans fresh. The optimal taste window for coffee beans, when they are at their peak or prime, is 48 to 72 hours after roasting and 7 days after.

Before and after this period, your coffee beans have not yet reached their peak or have gone beyond them. This is why it is important to look at the roasted on date.

The other common problem is not storing your beans properly, which is in a professional coffee canister that blocks UV light and has an airtight lid with a one-way valve.

The airtight lid prevents air getting in and further oxidizing your beans and also stops them from absorbing aromas and flavors from nearby items. The UV protection stops harsh light from deteriorating your beans.

The one-way valve allows the carbon dioxide that is emitted from your coffee beans to escape and prevents air from entering. Since your coffee beans will not freeze – not even in a special industrial freezer, you can store them in your freezer to help maintain that maximum peak freshness.

Fresh coffee that is stored well will always produce the best tasting coffee. At Latte Love Brew we encourage you to get in on the home roasting revolution and roast your own coffee beans. Roast small batches every Sunday and you will have fresh coffee all week.

With iced coffee, use a medium roast, medium-dark roast for a rich tasting cup of coffee. The rich taste is enhanced when your coffee is iced.

Weigh both your coffee grounds and water to ensure you are getting and using the exact and correct coffee to water ratio. Weight your beans as whole beans – the amount, the weight when ground is the same.

Only grind your beans immediately before brewing and preferably, use a conical ceramic burr grinder for the best results, greater grind consistency and less heat dissipation and “cooking” of your beans which slightly spoil them.

Ensure your grinder is clean before you use it. You wouldn’t cook your dinner with dirty pots or cut your vegetables with a dirty knife. Do the same with your coffee. Old coffee oil and grinds can get into your brew and spoil it.

Keep your coffee grinder’s hopper empty. Only use coffee beans that you have taken out of your coffee canister (and freezer!) immediately before grinding and brewing.

Use water that is at the very least filtered. The better the water quality, the better your coffee will be. Distilled is the best.

Avoid pouring your hot coffee over ice – you will only dilute it. The only exception is when you are using the Italian Shakerato technique and immediately chilling your drink with ice. Minimal (if any) ice is melted during this process.

Make iced coffee ice cubes for the best result.

Follow these hacks and tips for every type of coffee you are brewing, and you will start to get barista quality coffee at home.

Frequently Asked Questions About Best Coffee For Iced Coffee

What Brand Of Coffee Is Best For Iced Coffee?

In my opinion, there is no particular coffee brand that is better than others for making iced coffee. What is important is getting the right beans and using a medium or medium-dark roast and getting a good cup of iced coffee with fruit notes, chocolate tones and some flavors of the origin.

All the well known brands like Starbucks, Peet’s, Coffee Bros, Stone Street Coffee, and LifeBoost Organic all have excellent beans that are of the right roast and flavor profile for brewing iced coffee.

Can You Use Regular Coffee For Iced Coffee?

Sure,

it can be done, and you can most certainly use regular coffee beans to brew an iced coffee. Be aware that using regular beans will result in a very regular coffee.

What Coffee Pods Are Best For Iced Coffee?

Literally any coffee pod, capsule or K-cup will work well for iced coffee. Here are a few that I have personally tried and enjoyed:

• 1. Flat White Over Ice.
• 2. Ispirazione Salentina.
• 3. Long Black Over Ice.

What Coffee Does Starbucks Use For Iced Coffee?

AI know a lot of Starbucks baristas and some of my coffee-loving friends work there or have worked there. They all assure me that the Terraza Blend is what is used at Starbucks to make their iced coffee.

What Is The Best Type Of Coffee To Make Iced Coffee?

A bold, full-bodied coffee that is a medium-dark to dark roast works better for an iced coffee. Consider a coffee from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala or Costa Rica.

Can Regular Coffee Be Used For Iced Coffee?

Yes, you can use any type of coffee to make iced coffee. It doesn’t need to be premium quality coffee. Medium-dark and dark roasts tend to work best.

How Does Gordon Ramsay Make Iced Coffee?

Gordon Ramsay likes to make iced coffee with maple syrup, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. The iced coffee he likes to make is like a slushy with crushed ice. The ice is blended with the ingredients with the cinnamon sprinkled on after it is poured.

Can I Use Arabica Coffee For Iced Coffee?

Yes, Arabica beans are much better for brewing all types of coffee as they are much more flavorsome than Robusta coffee.

Frappé-Ing It All Up – Best Coffee For Iced Coffee

The best coffee for iced coffee and getting fabulous and enjoyable results is by far high quality medium roast or medium-dark roasted coffee beans from Panama, El Salvador, Sumatra, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Honduras as well as Ethiopian, Kenyan and Tanzanian all work incredibly well with iced coffee.

If you’re drinking it straight away – be sure to use that trick with the cocktail shaker to cool your coffee down immediately.

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