Ice-drip coffee is made by melting pure ice into small water droplets, adding freshly ground coffee powder to extract the coffee essence at a uniform speed, and then refrigeration for eight hours to naturally ferment. Ice-drip coffee has a mellow taste, pleasant sweetness and sourness, and is refreshing and delicious. It is a popular drink that must be on the list every hot summer day on Front Street.
What is the principle of ice drop?
Before we talk about ice-drip coffee seriously, we need to briefly introduce the two common methods of low-temperature extraction of coffee, Cold brew coffee and Cold drip coffee.
Cold brew coffee, also called cold brew coffee, as the name suggests, is to soak coffee powder with cold water or normal temperature water, and place it in a low-temperature environment such as a refrigerator to extract the coffee liquid. It is easy to operate and only requires a sealed container. Ice-drip coffee is a process in which ice water is slowly dripped onto the coffee powder at a constant speed for extraction. After dripping, it needs to be refrigerated and fermented overnight before drinking. Since the drip filtering time is usually 6-8 hours, if you want to drink the designated coffee beans, you need to make a reservation with Front Street in advance, and Front Street needs to start preparing in advance.
Since coffee beans will produce some polymer compounds after roasting, most of them have a bitter taste. When we brew coffee with hot water, the dissolution rate of various polymers will increase, so the bitterness will be stronger. In the process of low-temperature coffee extraction, the water used has a lower temperature. After contact with the coffee powder, the solubility rate of bitter substances is low, and other flavor substances are slowly released, so it tastes sweet and weakly bitter.
How to make iced drip coffee at home?
After many friends fell in love with the taste of ice-drip coffee, they bought ice-drip pot equipment and prepared to operate it at home, but they encountered various doubts. Front Street will first demonstrate how to make ice-drip coffee and answer these questions based on what is produced in the store.
There are so many coffee appliances on the market today, but the device of the ice drip pot still has three main parts: the upper pot that holds ice water (connected to a valve that can adjust the drip flow rate), the filter cup that holds coffee powder, and the lower pot that drips the coffee liquid. What you see when you come to the Front Street store is Tiamo HG2713, which has an extra circular glass tube for drainage. Everyone can choose according to their needs and budget.
The grinding degree of Front Street Iced Coffee has a sieving rate of 80-85% on China’s No. 20 standard sieve, and the store’s EK43s scale is 10. We all know that if the coffee is ground too coarsely, the flavor of the coffee will be weak, and if the coffee is ground too finely, it will easily cause blockage and prevent normal drainage, making the coffee bitter, so it is very important to choose the right grinding degree.
This time, Front Street used refreshing Kenyan Azalea coffee beans. The extraction rate is low at low temperature, so Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) barista recommended using a finer grinding degree than hand brewing. The standard sieve pass rate used here is 85%.
The flow rate is the same as that of hand brewing, but the flow rate of ice droplets is calculated in terms of drops per second. The slower the flow rate, the longer the total time required, and over-extraction is prone to occur. Front Street generally uses 7 drops every 10 seconds for extraction, and everyone can adjust the flow rate according to their own preferences. The ratio of powder to liquid is 1:10. Since the ice-drip coffee produced by Front Street is diluted with ice cubes before drinking, a higher concentration is used. If you make it at home, you can use 1:10 to 1:12 for extraction.
Front Street makes ice dripping by grinding 60g of coffee beans into powder, placing a round filter paper in the powder cup, pouring in the coffee powder, and finally placing a piece of filter paper on the surface and moistening the coffee powder with water, which can save drip filtering time and avoid uneven extraction. Fill the upper pot with a mixture of ice and water, that is, ice and water 1:1, and extract a total of 600g of coffee liquid. Finally, pour the filtered coffee liquid into a sealed container and store it in the refrigerator for 12 hours before drinking. Front Street usually drip filters during business hours during the day, and can be placed in the refrigerator to be refrigerated in the evening. It can be tasted with ice cubes the next day.
Introduction to coffee beans suitable for ice dripping
Regarding the selection of coffee beans, Front Street believes that you can choose coffee beans with different processing methods or roasting degrees according to your own preferences, provided that the coffee beans are within the best tasting period (2 months). The extraction characteristics of ice-drip coffee can highlight the wine aroma, fruit fermentation, and fruit aroma in the coffee. If you don’t know which coffee beans to choose, you can refer to the several coffees listed on the front street.
"Refreshing floral and fruity aroma - Front Street Alida Manor Carduai coffee beans"
This coffee bean is produced from Alida Estate, a well-known estate in Poquete, Panama. The region's geology is rich in nutrient-rich black soil. The coffee beans produced have a fragrant fruit aroma. They are washed to highlight the coffee's clear pink floral aroma, peach-like juice flavor, and citrus sour aroma. The iced drip coffee made from this coffee bean at Front Street presents rich layers of peach, sweet orange and grape.
"Fermented wine aroma - Front Street Honduran sherry barrel coffee beans"
This Honduran sherry coffee bean is fermented in whiskey barrels. The coffee beans present a rich aroma of vanilla, cream and whiskey. It is a very popular coffee bean on the front street bean list. The sherry iced drip coffee has a rich aroma of fermented wine and the sweetness of honey.
"Strong fruit tea type - Front Street sun-dried Oiran coffee beans"
The sun-dried Oiran coffee beans are made from mature coffee fruits whose pulp sugar content is as high as 30%. The fructose fermented in the sun gives the beans a full fruity sweetness. The iced drip made from this coffee bean has active berries, passion fruit, sour and sweet taste, obvious juice flavor, and the aftertaste has the fragrance of black tea.
How long can the prepared iced drip coffee be kept in the refrigerator?
The aroma of freshly dripped coffee liquid is relatively weak and the taste is thin, so it needs to be stored in a low-temperature environment for sealed fermentation to make the flavor of the coffee cleaner, mellower, and fuller, and to enhance the aroma, sweetness, and wine aroma of the coffee. The longer the storage time, the higher the degree of fermentation. Ice droplets that have been stored for more than five days will have a negative effect on the taste. Therefore, it is not better to store it for longer. Front Street recommends that it be stored in the refrigerator for best consumption within 5 days.
In addition, when we open the back bottle cap, external bacteria can easily invade and cause the coffee to deteriorate. To ensure the flavor and health of the coffee, it should not be drunk. The iced drip coffee produced at the Front Street store only has a three-day shelf life.
Professional coffee knowledge exchange. For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account cafe_style)
For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat, WeChat ID: qjcoffeex
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
