Coffee Recipes for pour-over and summer favourite: Cold Brew + Tonic

When it comes to hot coffee I am a purist. I don’t like to mix my coffee with alcohol, milk or syrup of any kind, a nice pour-over or Aeropress should, in my opinion, be enjoyed as it is. There are so many variables to play with while brewing that there is always a way to meet your expectations. But when it gets hotter (and this summer has been very hot up here in the north) my coffee gets colder, and with that my puritan ways disappears. When it comes to cold coffee I am open for crazy combinations, and there sure are lots of ways to experiment with your cold coffee.

I was asked to share some of my best recipes with Bean Bros subscribers. After some thinking, I came up with two of my favorite recipes. One that is my standard for pour-over when I am trying a new coffee, it was passed down to me by talented Veronika Gálová Veselá. It produces a very balanced cup, and I use it as a baseline from which I tweak the variables when a new coffee has landed in my kitchen.

For this first recipe, you will need 20 g of freshly grinded coffee, grind it as you would usually grind for pour over. It uses 300 g of 94C water which is poured over the coffee in three pulses at 0 minutes, 1 minute and the last one at 2 minutes. It should finish around 3 minutes. And remember to let it cool before you drink it, it really brings out the flavors.

For this recipe you could use any coffee, that is what I do. But as you might have noticed there is a Kenyan from Café Mocca in the box this month, this recipe would be a great way to get a sense of what kind of acidity you are dealing with in the coffee, and from there start experimenting with different parameters (water temperature, grind size, add a bloom phase, adjust your pouring technique, and so on) to get the best cup possible.

My second recipe is for a cold brew tonic, a lifesaver this time of year. Prepare your cold brew the day before by grinding 100 g of your favorite coffee (similar to the coarseness of what you would use for French press) and adding 1000 g of cold water. Store it in the fridge overnight (20 hours, give or take), the next day you filter it through a coffee filter. Store your finished cold brew in the fridge.

Cold Brew Tonic

For the tonic, I would recommend a tonic syrup, that way you can mix your own tonic water that is right for your taste. But it will work good with an ordinary tonic water as well. Fill a large glass halfway up with ice, pour your tonic over the ice, it should take up three-fifths of the glass. Add a few wedges of lime. Now you pour your cold brew over the ice, tonic and lime. If you pour really carefully you will get a gradient effect like in the picture. Add some fresh mint or rosemary to the drink and you are done.

I have yet to try the Café Mocca coffees that arrived in the BeanBros box this month, but from what I can tell, and from experience with other coffees of that origin, I would recommend the Ethiopian

Author:

Hello!
My name is Sebastian, I am living in the south of Sweden and for the last few years have been interested in specialty coffee. I publish my brews on Instagram and love experiencing new notes, flavors, and origins. Besides that, I am one of the hosts of the Swedish coffee podcast Kaffekonnässörerna. I got married earlier this year and except for my wife, I share my home with a seven-year-old Manx cat named Bukowski, a cool dude for sure!

Sebastian Franzén
@sebastianscoffee