Simple Iced Americano Recipe: Pros, Cons, and Why Everyone Loves This Bitter Iced Coffee

The Appeal of Iced Americano

Those who regularly drink coffee should understand that espresso has a very rich texture and intense flavor, which becomes even harder to accept when cooled. However, adding ice can rapidly lower the temperature of the espresso or mixing it with ice water instantly highlights a refreshing taste, making the bitterness less heavy. It's especially thirst-quenching and cooling in summer—this is the charm of iced Americano.

The Ratio of Iced Americano Coffee and Water

Iced Americano is undoubtedly the simplest popular item in coffee shops, requiring just a combination of espresso, ice, and water. It's also typically the lowest-priced beverage on the menu, usually between 18-25 yuan. At this point, some might wonder about the ratio of each component. There are no specific standards for the production ratio of iced Americano coffee, meaning each coffee shop might make their Americano differently. They determine the ratio based on the flavor characteristics of the coffee beans used and the cup size.

For example, the Americano coffee served at FrontStreet Coffee's storefront uses their own house-roasted Sunflower Warm Sun Blend coffee beans. Under ideal extraction, it should have notes of liquor, vanilla, cream, chocolate, and berries. To highlight these aromas, FrontStreet Coffee, after multiple comparisons, finally determined a ratio of 1:4.5. During preparation, 40g of espresso is extracted from 20g of coffee powder and poured into a preheated cup, with 180g of hot water added, temperature controlled between 80-85 degrees Celsius.

When making iced Americano coffee, FrontStreet Coffee considers the chilling and ice melting conditions. The denser the ice cubes, the slower they melt when soaked in water. Therefore, the ice cubes used at FrontStreet Coffee's storefront are pre-frozen and shaped, then stored in the freezer after removal. Such "old ice" melts more slowly and won't melt quickly even in summer, diluting the concentration and making the coffee taste too weak. Here, FrontStreet Coffee chooses larger ice cubes, each weighing about 25g, replacing the hot water in hot Americano with 100g of large ice cubes and 120g of room-temperature water, that is, 1:2.5:3, resulting in an iced Americano with moderate concentration and refreshing sweet-sour taste.

Besides Iced Americano, What Other Iced Coffees Can Espresso and Ice Make?

Among the customers who come to FrontStreet Coffee for coffee, a few friends might order like this to the barista: "Boss, please give me an iced Americano without water, thank you!" The method is quite simple—just keep the ice but remove the water from the iced Americano. However, FrontStreet Coffee's recommended approach is to pour the espresso over the ice cubes or directly extract the espresso into a cup with ice cubes.

This way, the espresso rapidly cools down through the ice cubes, resulting in better flavor and texture. Therefore, the iced Americano without water, also known as iced espresso, is still quite rich to drink. FrontStreet Coffee used their Sunflower Warm Sun Blend coffee beans to make both hot and iced espresso for comparison. Compared to hot espresso, it's not as bitter and has a bit more sweet-sour sensation, giving the entire cup a bright, uplifting feeling.

In addition, "Quicksand Iced Americano" and "Waterfall Iced Americano" have become popular on various platforms in recent years. "Quicksand" refers to the crema of espresso, which under steam whipping becomes a fine golden foam layer. When poured into a cup and left to stand for coffee layering, it creates a visual effect of fine sand sliding down layer by layer.

Because the intense-flavored espresso is whipped with ice, the bitterness of the coffee liquid is reduced, instead highlighting faint vanilla flavors and refreshing berry sweetness and sourness. Added with the fine and smooth foam layer, it gains some texture of dark beer. Pour the coffee liquid into a pre-frozen "ice cup," then let it float smoothly on the water's surface, waiting for the espresso liquid to "flow out" from inside. This is the once-popular waterfall iced Americano coffee, presenting a dynamic visual effect through the solid ice melting into liquid.

Is Iced Americano Bitter?

FrontStreet Coffee believes that for a delicious iced Americano coffee, a high-quality espresso base is key, so choosing the right coffee beans is very important. Since espresso belongs to pressure extraction, even minor adjustments in parameters can affect the final taste of the espresso. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using medium-dark roasted blend coffee beans.

Espresso blend coffee beans are roasted beans created by carefully selected coffee beans from different origins with different flavor profiles mixed and roasted by the roaster (or roasted separately and then blended in proportions). The purpose is to highlight the rich aroma of Espresso, maintain balanced flavors, and make the texture of espresso served in stores more stable. FrontStreet Coffee's understanding of blend beans is to maintain stable flavor and balanced texture, allowing the blended coffee to present an effect where one plus one is greater than two, complementing each other in taste to create richer new coffee textures.

Compared to many stores' classic bitter-toned Americano coffee, the espresso served at FrontStreet Coffee's storefront uses their house-roasted "Sunflower Warm Sun Blend," composed of Honduras Shirley coffee beans + sun-processed Yirgacheffe Red Cherry coffee beans. Under ideal extraction, the espresso should have whiskey aroma, vanilla, cream, berry acidity, rich aromas, and soft texture, very easy to drink, even acceptable for friends who don't drink much coffee. Of course, besides the Warm Sun Blend, FrontStreet Coffee also has three other espresso blend coffee beans with rich flavors and balanced textures, equally suitable for making Americano coffee.

1. FrontStreet Coffee - Specialty Blend Coffee Beans:
Colombian washed coffee beans (30%) + Brazilian semi-dry processed coffee beans (70%)
On the classic nutty tone of Brazilian coffee, Colombian coffee is added, presenting dark chocolate flavor in espresso, with caramel sweetness and full roasting aroma.

2. FrontStreet Coffee - Commercial Blend Coffee Beans:
Robusta washed coffee beans (10%) + Colombian washed coffee beans (30%) + Brazilian semi-dry processed coffee (60%)
The produced espresso has rich golden crema and nutty aroma. When tasting, there's a fragrant coffee bitterness, but more accompanied by a creamy full texture, and after swallowing, the bitterness also dissipates, leaving fragrance on the lips and teeth.

3. FrontStreet Coffee - Basic Blend Coffee Beans:
Yunnan washed small-grain coffee beans (30%) + Brazilian semi-dry processed coffee beans (70%)
Yunnan small-grain coffee with soft acidity paired with the rich aroma of Brazilian Cerrado coffee, the espresso coffee has caramel, nuts, and soft plum sour taste.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style).

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat account: qjcoffeex

With the same "configuration," adding a few more steps to iced Americano turns it into another coffee—Quicksand Iced Americano.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473