Iced, Iced Baby!

By Eddie Long

In my last article, I walked us into the sometimes-complicated world of ordering at a coffee shop. One of the questions people often ask is “do you have Iced Coffee?” Seems like a pretty straightforward question, but as I’ve found, “Iced Coffee” can mean a lot of things. So, this month, let's dive into ordering Iced drinks at the coffee shop!

There are lots of iced coffee drinks that one could order at a coffee shop, so let’s walk through the basics. We’ll start with Iced Coffee. This is exactly what it sounds like, coffee that’s brewed hot and put in the fridge overnight. You can drink it just like you would hot coffee. Black. Cream & Sugar. Or add some pumps of flavor. Iced Coffee has about 95 grams of caffeine per 8oz of liquid.

Next, let’s go to Cold Brew. With Cold Brew, there is no heat in the brewing process, instead, you steep coarsely ground coffee in cold water for a minimum of 12 hours. This changes a few things about your coffee. First, brewing with heat releases the acids in coffee, which means Cold Brew is less acidic. This changes the flavor profile and some claim that it’s easier on the stomach, especially if you struggle with reflux. Second, because the grounds steep overnight and the water to coffee ratio is less, there is a higher caffeine content in Cold Brew. Depending on the strength it’s brewed, Cold Brew could have between 100-200 grams of caffeine per 8oz of liquid.

Now let’s move to Nitro Cold Brew. When I first heard of Nitro, for some reason, my brain went to “nitrous.” I assumed it had some sort of caffeine boost that functioned like rocket fuel. But the only extra caffeine comes from cold brewing the coffee. Instead, Nitro refers to the nitrogen that’s infused into the cold brew causing a creamy bubbly texture, like a Guinness beer. Lastly, and most popularly, is the Iced Latte. It’s what most people actually mean when they ask for Iced Coffee. An Iced Latte is a double shot of espresso mixed into the creamy milk option of your choice. You can add any syrup or sweetener you like, our most popular is consistently the vanilla Iced Latte. Lattes are majority milk, so it’s usually the sweetest creamiest way to drink an iced coffee drink. The espresso provides the caffeine punch with 80-100mg per double shot. There are other iced coffee drinks like Iced Americanos but the ones we’ve gone over are by far the most popular.