Post Punk Kitchen Forum

What's a decent instant coffee to make iced coffee at home with? I'm not quite patient enough for our leaky coffee pot..

Starbucks Via isn't gross. They have a blend specifically for iced coffee that I liked. Sometimes they give out sample packs. I think I've seen it reasonably priced at Costco.

I used the Trader Joes instant. Its Colombian and very smooth. I add a bit of cocoa for depth and it weaned me off Sbux iced coffees. So good!

I ordered mine online from Amazon. I don't like coffee except with plenty of soy milk and sweetener. I bought Caffe D'Vitta last time.

I am not much of a starbucks fan, but yeah, their instant VIA coffee packs are not bad. I did a big project at a former job a couple years ago that involved sending cards to customers with a pack of those in there. Went to like 3K people, and of course there were bad addresses, so we got hundreds back, and I kept the coffee.

However...they are expensive, in my opinion. Costco is much cheaper to buy than at Starbucks. But I still could not bring myself to buy it once the freebies ran out.

What I do for iced coffee is do a cold press, then keep it in my fridge. Lasts a couple of weeks. There is some do-ahead prep time, but the work is minimal, its mostly just sitting there for awhile. TOTALLY worth the small amount of prep work. And it workes with ANY coffee that you have. I use my french press.

Here is a thread on it if you are interested:
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=14063&hilit=coffee

So, this isn't exactly answering your question, but I also do the coldpress thing like chicki said, but I don't even have a french press, I just use ground coffee and a mason jar. Let it sit a bit, filter it, reuse the grounds once (with less water) and it's fantastic. Plus, it only takes patience the first time if you keep it going.

I would imagine that instant espresso wouldn't be awful if mixed correctly.

Ditto on the cold press. I just pressed a batch I let sit for 24 hours. It's really good for using up odds and ends of beans you may not want to make an actual pot of. I usually use some of it for drinking (and add soymilk vs. water to re-constitute a bit) and bake with it.

So I totally know nothing about coffee. If you did the cold press idea, you buy coffee grounds right?

Here's the method I use with my french press: http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/ ... ew-coffee/

My favorite way to do the cold press is by soaking beans overnight and then filtering with a toddy and then you end up with cold concentrate that lasts a couple weeks.

Seconded! Toddies make the best iced coffee. You end up with a concentrate that's really smooth, low acidity, and it really brings out the chocolatey, nutty goodness of the beans. It's pretty easy to rig up something similar if you don't have the actual Toddy contraption. Here's a nice illustrated post on the method.

wow, that looks so good. I have to try this when it gets warmer.

Do you have access to Camp Coffee? It's a coffee and chicory extract that makes glorious iced coffee.