Iced Coffee 凍咖啡

Stepping into May, the weather is getting hotter and hotter. Along with those inconceivable and ridiculous things happened everyday, I got anxious very easily. Having a glass of cold coffee may make me feel relieved.

The coffee I’m going to have is not just coffee served with ice, it is the Cold Drip Coffee instead. So how is it related to the Cold Brew Coffee that got much attention in these days?

If you would to know more about these brewing concepts or terms, you may take a look at the following video from 小雨Wayne Shih’s YouTube Channel:

踏入五月，氣溫飆升，日間溫度接近三十度，再加上一件件不可思議，荒謬絕倫的事天天活現眼前，更令人覺得心情煩燥，就來個冰凍咖啡降降溫吧。

今次要飲的不是普通加了冰的咖啡，而是冰滴咖啡。那和近日頗受關注的冷萃咖啡又有甚麼關係呢？

如果大家想對這些概念、名詞多一點瞭解的話，可以參考 小雨Wayne Shih的YouTube頻道 內的這條片:

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Before proceeding, take a look at my new toy, a 300ml “Cold Brew Coffee Dripper“.

首先看看我新買的小玩意，“冰滴咖啡壺“，每次最多可用上300ml的冷水。

A reasonable size that fits my kitchen.

壼身不太大，放在廚房尚算可以。

I will use 25g of dark roasted Mandheling with 300ml of iced water. The bean to water ratio is slightly higher than the recommended ratio of 1:15. The major rationale is that I can dilute with additional water should the extracted coffee is too strong, but can’t help otherwise.

今次我預備了 25g 曼特寧深烘焙豆，300ml的冰水。咖啡豆的份量較建議的1:15多一些，主要是萃取後過濃的話可再加入冰水；不然的話，太淡便沒法補救了。

Using a finer grind level of 3.5 with my Feima 610N grinder.

硏磨度亦稍為調细，小飛馬的 3.5 度。

Placed the metallic filter inside the glass filter cup followed by the grounded coffee. Next put a paper filter on top.

先把金屬濾片放在玻璃濾杯中，加入硏磨好的咖啡，再蓋上濾紙。

Adjusted the water dripping rate. Unfortunately, the oversimple plastic tap was extremely difficult to control and I only managed to adjust to slightly below 2 second per drop, after fighting for quite a while. Possibly leave the fine tuning to my future attempts.

調校滴水速度，但這個排水閥實在太簡陋了，攪上數分鐘仍未能調好，最後只能控制在稍為低於兩秒一滴。下次再慢慢調校過吧!

Added 300g of ice cube and water for the dripping.

加入 300g 的冰粒和水。

At around 11:00pm, I started the extraction.

Remember, remember … NOT to start any works like this late in the night. I wondered when can I go to sleep! 😱

晚上十一點，開始萃取。

切記，切記 … 下次一定不要這麼晚才攪這些鬼玩意，今晚不知怎過! 😱

By 2am, still below 50% of the extraction. Anyway, went to sleep.

凌晨兩點，只萃取了不到一半，不再等，瞓覺。

Woke up by 5am and the extraction was done. Placed the coffee into the fridge and continued with my sleep.

五點多夢中驚醒，原來已完成了；放進冰箱，又繼續瞓。

The final extraction was about 250 ml of cold drip coffee. So how about the taste?

Frankly speaking, I’m not a barista nor having a formal professional cupping/tasting training. My personal observation was that this cold drip Mandheling had a relatively smooth body, stronger sweetness as compared with the hot version we normally had.

最終萃取到約 250 ml 的冰滴咖啡。口味如何?

我不是咖啡師，也沒有甚麼專業的培訓，只覺得這杯曼特寧口感頗柔順，味道濃厚而較平常熱的多一點甘甜。

Some said that the coffee will develop another level of complexity and taste like wine, if we let the cold drip coffee to naturally ferment in the fridge for few more days.

To be honest, I was so hungry this morning that I couldn’t wait to enjoy my first glass of cold drip coffee with a set of simple sandwich as my breakfast. Maybe I will explore more with the cold drip coffee in my subsequent attempts.

據說若把萃取好的咖啡放置冰箱多幾天，讓咖啡自然發酵，味道會變得如美酒般香醇。

不過今天早上實在太肚餓了，就用簡單的三文治襯托第一次做的冰滴咖啡作早餐，其他的嘗試就留待下次吧!