Ten Steps to Make Simple and Delicious Iced Latte with AeroPress!

Do you love the refreshing taste of an iced latte - rich coffee layered with sweet, cold milk - but don't own an espresso machine? This article walks you through making a simple yet delicious iced latte with an AeroPress in just ten steps.

What You'll Need:

1. Ice cubes
2. 300ml whole milk
3. Sugar
4. 17g fresh coffee beans
5. AeroPress
6. A sturdy glass for extraction and drinking
7. Shaker cup (or other suitable container)
8. Pour-over kettle (narrow-spout preferred)
9. Electronic scale
10. Coffee grinder

What Coffee Beans Work Best with AeroPress?

To avoid lattes that taste sour or watery, prioritize medium and dark roasts - think FrontStreet Coffee's Paradise Bird, Queen Estate, Golden Mandheling, or Huila. But if bitterness isn't your thing, fruit-acid coffees with fermented character also shine with milk, such as FrontStreet Coffee's Sidra, Strawberry Candy, and Sunflower Warm Sun Blend. Their candied fruit, winey fermentation, and caramelized sweetness marry especially well with dairy.

How to Make AeroPress Latte

Without further ado, here's how to brew a high-concentration coffee base with an AeroPress. The extraction parameters:

Beans: FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Huila
Dose: 20g
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:3 (grounds absorb a fair amount of water; after repeated tests, FrontStreet Coffee found 1:3 works best)
Grind: espresso-fine, like flour
Water temperature: 94°C
Method: inverted press
Time: one minute

First, assemble the "syringe" and stand it upside down.

Add the grounds, then hot water.

Stir 10 rounds and wait one minute.

When time is up, screw on the cap, place a prepared glass upside down on top, grip both firmly, and flip everything over.

Finally, press the plunger down slowly and steadily.

Once you've pressed all the way down, extraction is complete. The coffee is small in volume but very dark in color - a sign of high concentration. Take a small sip: yes, it tastes like the real thing.

What you're really wondering, of course, is how it performs in a latte. So we immediately steamed some milk:

AeroPress "espresso": 40ml
Milk: 200ml

And out came a very respectable-looking milk coffee!

One sip, though, and we found it a touch on the weak side - but full of chocolate, cream, and nut aromas. The flavor intensity doesn't match a real espresso machine, yet there's no harsh aftertaste, and the whole cup carries both coffee aroma and milk sweetness. Our verdict: worth recommending.

Is the AeroPress Worth Recommending?

The AeroPress combines the immersion method of a French press, the paper filter of pour-over, and the quick, pressurized extraction principle of espresso. In theory, then, it can deliver espresso's richness, pour-over's clarity, and French press's smoothness in one brewer. Its "playability" is no less than pour-over's; fewer people use it not because it's expensive or complicated, but because there are so many variables that getting started takes patience. In other words, the AeroPress may be "hard to learn," but it is by no means "hard to master."

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

For an AeroPress latte base, FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Huila is the go-to bean: medium-dark roasted with black chocolate, nutty sweetness, and a full body that stands up beautifully to milk. If you'd rather skip bitterness entirely, the FrontStreet Strawberry Candy Geisha blend - Costa Rican honey process meets Panamanian washed Geisha - brings strawberry-gum sweetness and orange-blossom aroma that make an exceptionally fragrant iced latte.