Baristas Are Revealing The Most Common Iced Coffee Mistakes You Should Avoid

The one exception to this rule: You’re making a flash brew, a favorite iced coffee method for two of the baristas we interviewed. You’ll brew your coffee — the pour-over and AeroPress techniques are most commonly recommended, but a drip machine works just fine — with less hot water than usual. You might brew with just two-thirds of the water you typically use. Then, replace the remaining one-third of water with ice, McCarthy explained. You can brew directly into your glass filled with ice or add the ice to your coffee later.  

“This is my preferred method because it doesn’t require any advanced prep and thought like cold brew does, and unlike a standard brewed hot coffee poured over ice, it won’t be diluted or weak,” McCarthy said. 

The final beverage won’t be incredibly cold, but the flash brew method is ideal for satisfying that iced coffee craving quickly, said Laila Ghambari, the 2014 United States Barista Champion. Plus, compared to other iced coffee techniques, “it locks in the aromatics and results in a much more flavorful coffee,” she said. 

If your standard brew ratio for hot coffee is 1 gram coffee to 16 grams water, adjust it to: 1 gram coffee to 12 grams water to 4 grams ice. You might brew 20 grams of coffee with 240 grams of hot water and serve it over 80 grams of ice, for example, McCarthy suggested.