How to Make Iced Cappuccino with a French Press? Is Iced Cappuccino Hard to Make?

Have you ever noticed that iced cappuccino rarely appears on coffee shop menus? Why is that? Is it particularly difficult to make?

Today, FrontStreet Coffee will take you on an exploration of iced cappuccino making. Let's discover together whether this coffee is truly as challenging to master as it seems!

The Origin of Cappuccino

The word "cappuccino" comes from the Italian "Cappuccino," meaning "hood." In Italy, "cappuccio" originally referred to the dark brown robes and small pointed hats worn by members of the Catholic Franciscan order.

The naming inspiration for cappuccino coffee came when people added milk to espresso and noticed its color resembled the robes of the Franciscan order. Creatively, they shaped the milk foam into a small pointed hat and named it "Cappuccino."

Traditional hot cappuccino is made by mixing espresso, hot milk, and hot milk foam in a 1:1:1 ratio. Milk foam comes in two types: dry and wet. Dry foam is more abundant, can maintain its shape for longer periods, and has a dense texture. Wet foam is relatively less abundant, has fluidity, maintains its shape for a shorter time than dry foam, but is equally dense and smooth.

Hot Cappuccino Making Tutorial

First, FrontStreet Coffee takes out a 240ml narrow-mouth ceramic cup. We use Sunny Blend coffee beans, with today's extraction parameters being 20g of coffee grounds extracted for 28 seconds to yield 40g of coffee liquid; the milk is Bright Dairy fresh milk, consisting of 170ml of steamed milk and 1.5cm thick milk foam.

Once the equipment and ingredients are ready, you can pour the espresso into the cup.

Finally, pour the steamed milk from a higher distance above the liquid surface into the cup, stirring until the foam reaches about 1.5cm thickness (visually表现为11分满, presenting a "hamburger shape" like during dark roast blooming).

Additionally, FrontStreet Coffee has found that making hot cappuccino requires attention to some details. For example, when extracting espresso with the coffee machine, time and temperature must be controlled to ensure the coffee's richness; when making milk foam, avoid over-frothing and overheating which can cause milk to spoil or create undesirable textures, in order to produce dense and fine foam.

Why Most Coffee Shops Don't Offer Iced Cappuccino?

Compared to traditional hot cappuccino, iced cappuccino has slightly different preparation methods. Its main characteristic is the use of cold milk and ice cubes, giving the entire iced coffee drink a cool and dense texture.

As mentioned earlier, presenting a cool and dense texture, many coffee shops don't offer iced cappuccino partly because the preparation process is more complicated, and partly because the texture of hot milk foam combined with iced coffee is not always accepted by every customer. Therefore, most coffee shops only offer hot cappuccino.

Alright, so now let FrontStreet Coffee show you how to make iced cappuccino! (FrontStreet Coffee doesn't typically serve iced cappuccino - this is just the method our barista uses when personally craving an iced coffee with dense texture.)

How to Make Iced Cappuccino

First, we need to prepare cold milk and ice cubes, as well as freshly extracted espresso and fresh milk (for those without an espresso machine at home, you can substitute with instant black coffee/individually packaged espresso liquid, etc.).

For the cold foam part: In this step, we can use a milk frother or French press for frothing. Here, FrontStreet Coffee uses a commonly found French press at home.

The process is very simple: pour chilled milk into the French press, about halfway up. Then pump the French press about 20 times back and forth, until the milk reaches about 8/10 full in the press. At this point, you'll see the container filled with dense foam. Be careful to control the time and speed of pumping to avoid the foam being too thin or too thick.

Once the cold foam is ready, you can start assembling the iced cappuccino! First, pour an appropriate amount of cold milk into the bottom of a cup filled with ice cubes.

Next, pour the extracted 40g of espresso into the cup.

Finally, gently spoon the prepared cold foam over the top, and your homemade refreshing and dense iced cappuccino is complete!

It's worth mentioning that FrontStreet Coffee has found that because iced cappuccino uses cold milk and ice cubes, the overall drinking experience is relatively refreshing and dense, but at the same time, due to the presence of ice cubes, the coffee concentration and texture of the drink will be affected to some extent. Therefore, during the preparation process, parameters can be adjusted according to personal taste and preference to achieve the best texture.

If you, like FrontStreet Coffee, are curious about the taste of handmade dense-foam iced cappuccino, why not refer to the experimental steps above, choose a coffee bean you love, and give it a try? It might bring you unexpected surprises!

- END -

FrontStreet Coffee

No. 10, Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473