Without the bitterness produced by hot water, cold-brewed coffee had hints of chocolate, even caramel. Which makes for a delicious iced coffee. Better yet, "cold-brewed coffee is actually dirt simple to make at home." A recipe is included with the article. Sounds like something worth trying.
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I just made New Orleans-style coffee concentrate from this article (subscription required) from the New York Times a while ago – my mother-in-law brought me a few packages of Community Coffee because I wanted to try it; my husband is a NOLA native, but now we live in Wisconsin, and the iced coffee here is just not the same… made with the coffee concentrate, it’s delicious. Yes, sweeter and with more depth of flavor. And, with the coffee concentrate, you can also make a really good cafe au lait (much closer to Cafe du Monde than anything they serve here).
I may be using the wrong coffee or something but I tried the printed recipe and it wasn’t that great. No better than regular iced coffee. I think my grounds are too small.
Also, it uses a lot more coffee than regular hot coffee cooled. But YMMV.
I used to use my Toddy every summer to make coffee concentrate to keep for iced coffee. It does taste great. However, it has a significant drawback – the end product has significantly less caffeine than hot brewed, something like 30-50%, if I remember correctly. If you’re cutting down on your caffeine, this may be great for you. If not, you’ll start to find that iced coffee made with a toddy, while refreshing and tasty, does not have even close to enough kick to keep you awake through a hot day. After a week or two, you’ll start to wonder why you feel so sleepy all the time.
I’ve been making iced coffee at home and work by using one of these cone drip filters: http://tinyurl.com/243awn and doubling up on my finely ground French Roast. I drip it directly into a glass full of ice. It lacks bitterness when it doesn’t have to cool itself over time.
If I want an approximation of an iced latte at home and don’t want to fire up the espresso machine, I drip the double-strength into a glass of cold milk and later add ice.
Also, I use the standard of 2T per six ounces of brewed so the ratio in the NYTimes recipe struck me as too little coffee rather than too much…
I’ve been using a Filtron (Toddy’s competitor) for years to make my daily coffee, hot or cold. A friend from New Orleans turned me on to it. I make cafe au lait by heating a cup of milk and pouring in concentrate. It takes me about three weeks to get through a carafe of concentrate (I only have a cup a day) and it’s so convenient, like instant coffee only much better-tasting.
After reading this post, I quickly put some course ground fresh beans from my local roaster in my Bodum French press, added some water and let sit overnight. Just finished my first glass with breakfast it it’s actually quite tasty. I froze the leftovers as ice cubes for later. Seems obvious, but the French press worked perfectly, filtered all the grinds, nice full flavor.
Jim, are you using the same proportions that you would for hot coffee? I have a Bodum too, and would like to try it. Thanks!
I was raised on the stuff. I live in New Orleans, and that’s the only way my mother has ever made coffee, and consequently the only way I make it. You can keep the cold drip concentrate in the fridge and use it not only for iced coffee but also hot cafe au lait. It saves me the trouble of having to fire up a coffee maker in the morning. And the best thing about it, is that the concentrate freezes well.