How to Make Coffee Ice Cubes: Do Cold Brew and Iced Coffee Need Coffee Ice Cubes?

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In summer, when you make iced coffee or other frozen drinks, regular ice melts and waters the coffee down. If you want a rich iced coffee that never loses its flavor, coffee ice cubes are the answer.

That's right—FrontStreet Coffee suggests a simple solution that only takes a little planning: make coffee ice cubes! They're perfect for iced coffee and just as handy in all kinds of other cold drinks.

Coffee Ice Cubes

The easiest way to make them: brew coffee as usual, fill ice cube trays, and pop them in the freezer.

Ingredients

42 grams coffee beans

420 milliliters filtered water (14 ounces)

Friendly Reminder

Brew your pour-over as usual—here, 42g of coffee and 420ml of filtered water yield 420ml of coffee. After brewing, carefully pour the coffee into ice cube trays and freeze for about 2 hours.

Cold Brew Coffee Ice Cubes

The best approach: make cold brew, then freeze the cold brew into ice cubes. Cold brew's smoother taste and lower acidity make it less likely to curdle any dairy you add later.

Cold brew needs lead time—at least 8 hours (overnight), though we recommend 24 hours—so start the day before you actually need the cubes. Honestly, though, coffee ice cubes belong in your freezer year-round.

Espresso Ice Cubes

Thanks to its crema and low volume, espresso is a poor candidate for ice cubes. Even if you're willing to sacrifice multiple shots, you'd have to mix the coffee oils evenly before freezing—and once the cubes melt in your drink, you risk a creamy, inconsistent mess that tastes odd and looks worse. Cold brew is simply the better solution.

Milk Coffee Ice Cubes

Hit your coffee limit for the day but still want something delicious and iced? Another favorite of ours: milk coffee ice cubes. Fill a glass with the coffee cubes from the previous step, then pour milk over them. We recommend using cold brew for these cubes—its lower acidity is far less likely to curdle the milk as they melt.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Cold brew accentuates floral and fruity notes while muting woody and roasted tones, so a light-to-medium roast bean shows best in it. If florals are your thing, FrontStreet Coffee's Natural Huakui (Flower Champion) from Ethiopia is a must: sun-dried in its fruit, the bean absorbs abundant sweet aromatics, and steeped cold it unfurls magnolia, creamy strawberry, dried mango, guava, and black tea. For pure juice sensation, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya Cherry Tomato—grown at 1,550-1,750 meters in Thika on SL28 and SL34, given the local K72 double-washed fermentation, and roasted light—delivers cherry tomato, snow pear, black plum, and smoked plum with low bitterness, full acidity, and a refreshing, lingering finish over ice.

Since cold brew consumes more grounds than pour-over, value matters too. Many people love FrontStreet Coffee's Colombia Xijaw for its passion fruit, grape, apricot, and dried-fruit sweetness, but at its price it's better stretched: blend it 1:2 with FrontStreet Coffee's Costa Rica Tarrazu, and you keep Xijaw's floral-fruit perfume plus Tarrazu's crisp citrus acidity while doubling your batch for less. For a budget all-rounder, FrontStreet Coffee's Washed Gedeb Cooperative Yirgacheffe is arguably the best home choice of all—washed Yirgacheffe's clean, bright sweet-tart cup handles pour-over, siphon, French press, and cold brew alike, and in cold brew it shows remarkably sweet berry flavors, layered complexity, and honey.

Whichever bean you choose, freeze your cold brew into cubes, drop them into a glass, and pour milk or sparkling water over them—the cubes melt into coffee instead of water, so the last sip tastes as good as the first.