On a scale from one to daily fanatic, I'm about a six on the Starbucks scale. If I'm going to buy a tasty basic brew, I like to mix and match at 711. But I do enjoy a tasty flavored treat from Starbies. When I was in Indonesia with the Peace Corps, Starbucks was the ultimate decadence, rarely enjoyed and easily 5x the cost of a meal in my village. As a funemployed cat mom, I can't really justify a regular tap of iced mochas. Besides, I've tasted the nectar of the gods, and Starbies can't hold a candle to iced coffee served in a plastic bag from a pushcart parked in downtown Bangkok.
nothing compares 2 u
I've been itching to try cold brewing my own coffee so that I could attempt Thai iced coffee on my own. What I've learned is that a batch of cold brew can be styled all kinds of ways, and that one batch lasted me nearly a week, drinking it twice a day.
This is the counter where all the magic happens [featuring one of Michelle's candles]
I adapted this brew from a post by The Pioneer Woman. She brewed a pound of coffee in 8 quarts of water, and I have nothing that big in our apartment. So I halved it and gingerly rested a lid on our biggest Tupperware and hoped the cat wouldn't find it.
So, half a pound of coffee (I used Dark Roast that I bought at Aldi, but next time I'm going to get something radically strong from Zeke's Coffee), 4 quarts of water - mix it up and make sure all the grounds are in contact with water and not floating on top. Then let it sit - I wound up letting it sit for a lonnnng time because I went out that night and didn't want to filter it until morning. But at least 8 hours for brewing in a cool space.
Then the fun starts:
I moved all the clean dishes out of the way for this photo but did not put them in the cabinets.
Using a mesh sieve and paper towel for an extra fine filter (you could also use cheesecloth, less paper waste!), I started straining the grounds. The key is to use a spoon or something to press down on the grounds in the sieve, ensuring you get every last drop of black gold goodness.
In the end I had an entire carafe of cold brewed coffee. The first thing I wanted to make was Thai styled iced coffee. The essential ingredient to Thai or Vietnamese iced coffee is, in my opinion, the sweetened condensed milk.
oh my glob
Depending on the size of your coffee, one gloopy spoonful can be enough... or it could be just the beginning. This is the formula I followed: fill cup with ice, fill 2/3 of the way with coffee, spoon in condensed milk, top with coffee creamer [or milk], and stir. For Thai style, I added a dash of cinnamon. I've also read opinions that Thai style needs nutmeg and cardamon, but you know what, I don't have that in my pantry yet.
yes ma'am
That was only the beginning of a very caffeinated week. One night Michelle was craving ice cream, so I made Nutella Coffee frappes.
I took a shitty screenshot of my instagram video of the process
For a frappe, you'll want 1 cup of ice, 1/2 cup of milk [I used chocolate milk], 1/2 cup of coffee, multiple tablespoons of Nutella [I used 4], 1 teaspoon of sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Blend and serve. I threw a dash of cocoa powder on top, but I wish I had blended it in. You could also add whipped cream or chocolate syrup.
I also perved out on some coffee on coffee cube action. The coffee cubes were from a leftover cup of Sumatra roast I had brewed the boring, hot way and then forgotten to drink because I got obsessed with cold brew.
I do drink everything out of my Starbies travel cup
The great thing about cold brew is that its flavor is very strong and won't be too watered down with regular ice. So when you add cold brew to coffee cubes, you're basically asking to never sleep again. It's great.
I also tried mixing in cocoa powder with the condensed milk and creamer, which really made it taste like a Starbies iced mocha.
Do you hear angles and harps? Because I do.
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