Should I Add Ice Before or After Pouring for Iced Pour-Over Coffee? Which Tastes Better?

Summer's Not Over Yet: Perfecting Your Iced Pour-Over Coffee

Autumn has arrived, and I have already had my first cup of milk tea. But why is the weather still so hot?

Since summer has not truly ended, let's continue with a recent hot topic: for iced pour-over coffee, should you add ice before or after brewing? And what happens if you remove the ice?

The Cooling Role of Ice in Iced Pour-Over

Unfortunately, iced pour-over coffee is not brewed with ice water. Ice water does not carry enough heat to extract the aromatic compounds from coffee, so we can only brew with hot water. That is where ice takes on the primary role of cooling the coffee.

But ice has a side effect: it dilutes the coffee. Imagine brewing at the standard hot pour-over ratio of 1:15, then adding ice to cool it afterward. For 15g of grounds you would need 225ml of water, and to cool that 225ml you would need at least 150g of ice. The ice melts into water, changing the ratio from 1:15 to 1:15-plus and significantly diluting the final concentration.

So, before making iced coffee, we need to plan the ratios in advance so that the ice can cool the coffee while still maintaining concentration as it melts.

FrontStreet Coffee, for example, uses a 1:10:7 ratio of coffee grounds to water to ice. For 15g of grounds, that means 150ml of hot water plus about 100g of ice. Many people might think the final coffee will taste weak. It will not.

That is because FrontStreet Coffee uses large solid ice cubes weighing about 25g each. Each iced pour-over needs only 4 cubes to reach our 100g target. After brewing, the ice does not fully melt, so you actually get about 200ml of coffee liquid with about 20g of ice remaining (some hot water is absorbed by the grounds). The concentration tastes just right.

(Image showing the weight of the pour-over coffee with ice removed after brewing.)

When Should You Add Ice?

On the timing of the ice, there are really only two options: before brewing or after. Adding ice beforehand is our standard approach, where the coffee contacts the ice throughout brewing for cooling. Adding ice afterward means pouring the brewed coffee over prepared ice to combine.

Is there a significant difference between the two? Under completely identical conditions — same grind size, same coffee-to-water-to-ice ratio — not much. If we had to name a subtle distinction, pour-over with ice added beforehand tends to be cleaner and more refreshing, while pour-over with ice added afterward has more concentrated aromas and more concrete flavors. So both methods are perfectly acceptable.

If the continuous melting of ice dilutes the coffee, then, would it taste better to filter the ice out after brewing?

That depends on how much ice remains after brewing. Each time, the hardness and size of the cubes vary slightly. If only a small amount remains, it might melt completely before you have a chance to remove it. If large cubes remain, filtering them out is indeed a good option to reduce dilution. For coffee shops, though, product consistency is crucial, and filtering the ice out some of the time and not others leads to inconsistent drinks. So the choice between the two approaches comes down to personal preference.

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FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Iced pour-over shows off floral, fruity beans best, and FrontStreet's Flower Queen is a natural fit. Grown in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee and processed by the natural method, it draws deep sweetness from the fruit and skin during drying. Cold brewed, or brewed over ice, it reveals magnolia, strawberry cream, dried mango, guava, and black tea — lively and layered, exactly the kind of bright aroma that a chill keeps crisp.

For a juice-like iced pour-over, FrontStreet's Kenya Cherry Tomato is another strong pick. From Kenya's Sika region, it uses the classic SL28 and SL34 varieties with the area's distinctive 72-hour double wash, and it shows cherry tomato, smoked plum, pear, and black plum. Low in bitterness and full in acidity, it is especially refreshing once the ice goes in — a fine match for a hot afternoon.