Everyday Iced Coffee in 5 Steps: Not Rocket Science

I don’t know when this happened, but iced coffee has somehow become some sort of novelty. Probably because I constantly hear people lamenting about how HARD it is to make iced coffee. It’s HARD when I pour boiling hot coffee over ice cubes and it all melts and makes my coffee watery. It’s HARD to double brew my coffee. It’s HARD to have iced coffee in a travel mug because there isn’t room for the ice! It’s HARD to get sugar to dissolve in cold liquid. Are you listening to yourselves? Seriously.

No. You don’t have to do that. It doesn’t have to be this way.

If you’re a coffee snob and you like your coffee fresh, like I-only-drink-it-within-5-minutes-of-brewing-it-or-it’s-gross fresh, move along. For the rest of us…listen up. Here’s what you want to do.

1. Brew a pot of your morning coffee, but make a few cups extra.
2. Add sugar (or sweetener of choice, if you swing that way at all). Sweeten the entire pot of coffee, while it’s hot.
3. Consume some of the hot coffee. Let the rest cool on the counter.
4. Fill an ice cube tray with some cold coffee, freeze. Why would you make ice cubes out of water? WHY.
5. Fill a pitcher with the remaining coffee, stick in the fridge.

In a few hours, you have cold coffee in your fridge to enjoy at your leisure. With a covered pitcher, this lasts a few days. Make a little bit of extra coffee each morning to add to the pitcher. If you run out of the cold, refrigerator coffee, pour hot coffee over the coffee ice cubes that are already in your fridge.

Where’s my James Beard?