Quick and Easy: Dad’s Iced Coffee

It may be pleasantly cool and grey today, but the weather has finally caught up to the whole ‘It’s August” thing recently, which means I can’t bear to drink hot coffee while sweating my brains out in my tiny office. Luckily when I was in Oregon in June, my dad taught me his spiffy new iced coffee technique:

Brew coffee in a stovetop espresso maker.

bialetti

Sweeten while hot with BROWN sugar, to taste (the coffee is strong and bitter, so I needed a goodly amount of sugar). Does anyone else out there besides me and Tom drink hot coffee with just milk, but iced coffee with milk and sugar? I’m sure this has something to do with bitter flavor compounds showing up when the drink is cold.

Chill, then serve over ice with milk. About a one-to-one ratio is good, or even more milk; again, the coffee is quite concentrated.

iced coffee

I make the espresso the night before and then I just have to add ice and milk in the morning when I can’t be trusted to do anything complicated, anyway.

13 thoughts on “Quick and Easy: Dad’s Iced Coffee”

  1. My husband makes stovetop espresso every morning and I, too, drink it hot with milk but cold with milk and sugar. I like your idea of using brown sugar — I’ll try it in the am. Oooh, I wish it was morning already! xx

  2. Sounds yummy, can’t wait for it to be full-on summer again so we can start making iced coffees. We do ours the Vietnamese way, some condensed milk and ice cubes in a glass and then we put the Vietnamese drip on top, allowing the warm strong coffee to slowly melt the ice while it drips into the glass.

  3. Bordeaux, I ADORE vietnamese iced coffee. High on my list of favorite things in the universe. I should track down one of those special filters so I can make it at home.

  4. I’m impatient, and add to that, I’m a bartender. I shake my sweetened espresso in ice (in a cocktail shaker), then add milk.

  5. This is a great recipe! I love stove top espresso makers as well. Just make sure your espresso maker is made of stainless steel, and not aluminum. Aluminum, if used cooking, is proven to cause Alzheimers!!

  6. I found your blog through Design*Sponge and am loving it!

    I’m sorry to ask such a boring question –but how *do* you use the stovetop espresso maker? I have a hand-me-down from my dear Mother, but lost the directions somewhere along the way. Please help?

  7. Welcome, Reba! Don’t worry, the espresso makers are a little intimidating at first. (And I’m too lazy to use it unless I’m craving iced coffee; I normally use a plastic cone/paper filter on top of my mug!)

    Basically, you fill the bottom portion with water to the fill line. If there’s no fill line, go to the bottom of the little valve on the side. Then plop the middle basket part on top, and pack that with espresso-ground coffee (it should have multiple parts; you might check online for a diagram to make sure yours isn’t missing anything), right up to the top [top photo]. Don’t tamp it down too hard, but do ta it in with a spoon so the top is smooth, and make sure you haven’t dribbled grounds into the grooves where the top screws on! Finally, screw on the empty top portion, where the handle is.

    Put the whole contraption over mediumish heat. When it starts making horrifying sounds, it’s done. (If you’re not sure, peek carefully inside the lid. You can see in the photo above that the coffee comes out that middle rod section; when it’s done it starts spurting bubbles/air with just tiny specks of coffee, and if you leave it on the stove you’ll burn out the bottom.) Good luck!

  8. I’m so glad to have found your web page. My pal mentioned it to me before, yet never got around to checking it out until now. I must express, I’m floored. I really enjoyed reading through your posts and will absolutely be back to get more.

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