Refreshing cold brews for scorching days
Slightly aloof from the hustle and bustle of Indiranagar in Bengaluru, nestled amidst the greenery of a nursery and a garden store lies Nerlu café, a haven for coffee enthusiasts. This café has carved a niche for itself with its dedication to the art of coffee making. They brew coffee from roasts all over the country, with a colourful display of their packaging on one of the walls.
While I usually order a flat white, the current heatwave had me looking at the cold beverages section of the menu on the wall. The citrus cold brew called out to me—it seemed perfect for the hot morning. Just one sip and I knew that I had found my new favourite summer beverage.
It’s time to make cold brew your best friend this season. As fancy as it sounds, the process is rather simple. Coarse coffee grounds are steeped in cold water for an extended period, typically 12-24 hours in a jar. This long steeping allows the cold water to gradually extract the flavours, oils and caffeine from the coffee grounds, resulting in a smooth, rich brew with lower acidity and bitterness as compared to its hotbrewed counterparts.
Once the brewing process is complete, the brew can be diluted with water or milk to achieve the desired strength and flavour profile. It can also be served over ice for a refreshing pickme-up on a hot day or used as a base for a variety of creative coffee concoctions. In this case, the cold brew was combined with lots of ice and an orange syrup (the kind used for mocktails and cocktails) to give it a strong citrus flavour. You can also make a cold brew float by topping it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, along the lines of affogato, which is a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a shot of espresso.
While you get cold brew coffee makers, you don’t need any specialised equipment to make it at home. A large mason jar or a French press works perfectly fine. Just make sure to grind the beans to a coarse consistency. Try making cold brew coffee at home from the method given below.
Vietnamese iced coffee is another way to enjoy coffee during summer. The Vietnamese drip coffee brewing equipment called phin is quite similar to our south Indian coffee filter. Brew some strong coffee in the filter and pour it over condensed milk. Top with plenty of ice to serve it chilled. Like south Indian filter coffee, even the Vietnamese coffee blends used to prechocolate pare this coffee have a mix of chicory, so you can try this brew with any of the south Indian filter coffee powder brands. A Vietnamese blogger Hungry Huy recommends keeping the condensed milk in a squeezy bottle in the fridge for a quick and easy way to prepare this iced coffee.
In the early 2000s, it was cool to sip on frappes in Café Coffee Day and Barista, when the coffee culture was just taking off in India. What I didn’t know then was frappe is just a fancy term for our homely cold coffee. Of course, a good café will use freshly brewed coffee for the same over the instant coffee used in homes. To make frappes, brewed coffee (not hot), milk, sugar and ice are blended until frothy and icy, poured into a tall glass and then topped with whipped cream, chocolate syrup, or any other flavours to suit your indulgence. A loaded frappe can easily have the calorie load of a meal, so it’s nice to make it leaner at home with less sugar and skipping the whipped cream, ice cream and syrups. A nice low-cal touch would be to dust cinnamon powder, cocoa powder and a bit of shaved dark chocolate.
If nothing, there’s always iced Americano, a good dose of caffeine, refreshingly chilled and pretty much zero calories.
What brew is beckoning you this summer?
HOMEMADE COLD BREW
Makes 3-4 servings
Ingredients
1 cup coffee beans of choice 4 cups filtered water
Method
Grind the beans to a coarse consistency using a coffee grinder. In a 1.5-litre bottle or jar, combine the coffee with four cups of filtered water and stir well. Cover the jar and set aside for 8-12 hours depending on how strong you want it. I prefer letting it steep in the fridge given that our room temperature is hitting over 35 degrees Celsius.
Pass it through a fine-meshed sieve lined with a double layer of muslin cloth or through a nut-milk bag.
Save the cold brew in an jar in the fridge. This will last well for a week.
Cold brew made this way is quite strong, so it is best to have it diluted. Combine one part cold brew with one part cold water or milk (dairy or alt milk) or serve over lots of ice. Add a flavour of choice like orange syrup, hazelnut, caramel or vanilla.
ESPRESSO TONIC ON ICE
Makes 2
Ingredients
2 shots espresso (made in a espresso machine or mokapot)
2 bottles low-sugar tonic water (I love using Vaum’s Elderflower Rosemary Botanical water)
2 sprigs of rosemary
Lots of ice
Method
Make the espresso ahead of time and let it cool down to room temperature.
Take a highball or Collins glass for this drink. Half fill both the glasses with ice cubes. Pour the tonic water over the ice. Pour one shot of espresso each into the glasses and gently stir to mix. Garnish with rosemary sprigs.
You can also use simple soda instead of tonic, if the clash of flavours between the tonic water and espresso are not to your taste.
Double Tested is a fortnightly column on vegetarian cooking, highlighting a single ingredient prepared two ways. Nandita Iyer’s latest book is The Great Indian Thali—Seasonal Vegetarian Wholesomeness (Roli Books). She posts @saffrontrail on Twitter and Instagram.