The Process of Making Iced Pour-Over Coffee

In the depths of summer, plenty of customers would rather have a refreshing iced coffee than a rich hot one! In this article, FrontStreet Coffee shares how to make iced pour-over coffee.

You can scale the ice to your preferred strength, since the melting ice will dilute the brew — that's why the coffee-to-water ratio is reduced, so the coffee cools down without losing the flavor it should express. Here's FrontStreet Coffee's example recipe: 15g of your favorite beans at a coffee-to-ice-to-water ratio of 1:6:10 — that is, 15g of coffee, about 100g of ice, and 150ml of water.

Brewing Steps

1. Grind the beans slightly finer than you would for a hot pour-over. (For this brew, FrontStreet Coffee used Kenya Asalia beans on an EK43S grinder at grind setting 9.5.)

2. Load the server below with ice cubes, seat the filter paper in the dripper, and add the ground coffee.

3. FrontStreet Coffee used a V60 dripper. Place 15g of coffee in the pre-wetted filter paper. Once the water reaches 91–93°C, set the dripper on the server and begin: first pour twice the coffee's weight in water (30ml) and bloom for 30 seconds.

4. After the bloom, pour starting from the center and spiral outward until you've added 100ml of water.

5. As the water level nearly drains, make the second pour — 50ml added to the center in small circles — and finish pouring.

6. Once all the water has filtered through, lift off the dripper, swirl the server so the ice and coffee mix completely, then pour into a cup and enjoy.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Iced pour-over amplifies florals and fruit while softening roast and woody notes, so bright, fruity beans work best. For a juicy cup like the Kenya Asalia used above — FrontStreet's Kenya Cherry Tomato from the Thika region, SL28 and SL34 washed with the local K72 double-fermentation method and roasted light, delivers cherry-tomato, dark plum, snow pear, and black plum flavors that stay vivid over ice. The natural-processed Flower Queen from Ethiopia turns iced pour-over into magnolia, creamy strawberry, dried mango, and guava with a black-tea finish.

If you'd rather skip the pouring altogether, the same beans make excellent cold brew: try FrontStreet's Strawberry Candy blend — Panama Geisha meets honey-processed Costa Rica — with 30g of coffee ground to fine sugar, steeped in 360g of room-temperature water at 1:12, refrigerated 8 hours, strained, then matured another 3 hours for a cold brew tasting of grape juice, rose, sweet orange, and fruit wine.