The Complete Guide to Iced Coffee

As global warming shrivels our planet into a wrinkled little Raisinette, the continued rise of iced coffee is inevitable. Eventually, steamed milk and burning your tongue on a Thermos of hot coffee will just be fables to tell your crispy-skinned grandchildren. In the meantime, bone up your knowledge of the myriad cold coffee styles with this complete guide.  Written by Ruth Brown (@rbbrown)

When you order an iced coffee in most la-di-da coffee shops these days, this is probably what you're going to get—which is funny, because it's made with just about the least trendy-looking coffee gear you'll ever see without a plastic Hello Kitty figurine on top of it. Toddy and Filtron coffeemakers sound cool, but they're basically big ol' plastic buckets with filters in the bottom. The whole process pretty much looks like a dodgy composting experiment, but the end results are fantastic. Coffee is steeped for 12-24 hours, slowly dripping out into a rich, smooth, low-acid concentrate, which is then diluted with water (or milk and sugar if you want to RUIN your drink—which, sigh, I know you do). Find it: Everywhere. (By which I mean really trendy coffee shops.)

While hot-brewed iced coffee—also known as "Japanese iced coffee"—may sound counterintuitive, it's actually really clever. The coffee is made over ice using a drip brewer like a V60 or a Chemex. As the hot coffee drips down, it simultaneously cools quickly and melts the ice, preventing oxidation and diluting the brew. Where cold brewing results in a very mellow, simple drink, this method retains all the acid, aromatics, and complexity of a regular hot cup of coffee. Note: Brewing directly onto ice really is the key to locking in those fresh flavors. A barista pouring an hour-old, luke-warm pot of French press into a cup of ice is not Japanese iced coffee. It's gross. Find it: This method is way, way, way less common (in the U.S.; one assumes it's pretty popular in Japan?) than the cold drip, but it has some devout evangelists and word is spreading—perhaps one of its biggest proponents has been coffee legend George Howell of Newton, MA's George Howell Coffee.

This is technically another method of cold brewing, but it's distinct enough to warrant its own category. You've likely seen a Kyoto brewer even if you don't realize it: They're those wood-framed towers of twisty glass tubes and cylinders that look like something from a steampunk science lab and are often seen lingering behind coffee shop counters. Yeah, those things—they're not just ornamental! The main two you're going to see in the wild are the Yama and the Oji brands. You don't actually need to know that, but if you want to impress someone in a café by saying, "Those Oji drippers are hand-made by glass blowers in Japan, you know?"—well, now you can. You're welcome. They work basically like this: Water is poured into the top cylinder; it slowly drips down into the coffee in the cylinder below; each drip subsequently provokes one drip of coffee into the container below that. Painstaking as it sounds, it's typically a little quicker than the Toddy—about eight hours, although adjustable taps allow baristas to set the exact drip rate. Proponents argue that this high level of control and extremely gentle process makes for a lighter, sweeter cup that retains more of the coffee's characteristics (or, as the Oji website puts it: "In the conventional water dripper, coffee beans are not extracted smoothly as water move to center but our 'Doppi' successed makes solution about it.") Others can't taste the difference. One thing everyone agrees is that these things look a damn sight cooler than the standard cold-brew bucket, and the theater of the machinery is a big part of this method's appeal. Find it: At similar trendy coffee shops to other cold-drip methods. You should be able to spot these brewers through a coffeeshop window, as they're both eye-catching and huge. In New York, you can find one at the Blue Bottle in Williamsburg.

If you've ever been a tourist in New Orleans then you've almost certainly sat like a schmuck inhaling hot coffee and deep-fried dough under the searing sun. What you should have been drinking was a classic New Orleans iced coffee. Fortunately, an increasing number of cafés outside NOLA are now making this style, so you can right this wrong without having to go anywhere near Bourbon Street. The actual method at play is even less elegant than cold drip: The coffee is left to steep in a large pot for about 12 hours, then poured through a sieve (or even cheesecloth) and served diluted with water and usually sugar and milk. But what really gives it its New Orleansy-ness—especially when sold outside the city—is the addition of ground chicory to the steep, for that distinctive Southern spice. Where to find it: In really random places. Blue Bottle in San Francisco and New York is probably the best-known purveyor of this style (outside of New Orleans). Single Origin in L.A. calls it "Nik's cold brew." And the NOLA-born PJ's Coffee chain, which has some stores outside the state, also makes it.

The iced latte is perhaps the least consistently prepared drink in all of coffee land. Some cafés throw a handful of ice in a regular latte. Some use regular cold milk. Some use half cold milk and top with steamed milk. Some actually use cold-brew coffee and cold milk—at which point it has ceased to resemble a latte in any meaningful way, but they will still write it as such on the chalkboard. Warning: Some baristas are militantly opposed to pouring espresso over ice, and they may not be shy about letting you know. The traditional argument is that ice "shocks" the highly volatile espresso shot, rendering it bitter and metallic. Others think this is bollocks. But order at your own risk. Find it: To avoid the wrath of purist baristas, it might be safer to stick to less cool coffee shops for these. Try anywhere that's near a college campus or hosts regular poetry slam nights. (In the case of the latter, don't forget to tell your barista, "I believe I ordered the large cappuccino. HELLO!" This is funny every time.)

Speaking of shocking espresso with ice—that is almost literally the idea behind the caffe shakerato, an Italian iced coffee drink that has been gaining some traction in Italian-ish cafés in the U.S. in recent years. It's espresso, sugar, and ice shaken vigorously in a cocktail shaker, then stained into some fancy glassware. The resulting mixture is frothy, strong, sweet, and highly refreshing. There are infinite variations—from lemon twists to alcohol-spiked versions—and though the trend in coffee these days is towards extreme minimalism, the places that tend to serve this drink also tend towards—how to put this gently?—really shitty Italian coffee. So go nuts with the flavored syrups. Find it: Does this café have a dubious Italian name? Does it sell panini and have some kind of Ferrari merchandise on the wall? Is the coffee Illy or Lavazza? Try here.

Calvin Trillin is widely quoted as stating, "The bánh mi sandwich is really the only good argument for colonialism." But the same could also be argued for ca phe sua da, the Vietnamese take on iced coffee. In its most basic form, Vietnamese coffee is typically pretty bad: low-quality beans roasted so dark that even Starbucks would cringe. But when the Vietnamese sent their former colonizers packing, they held on to the sweetened condensed milk the French had been using to flavor their coffee in lieu of fresh milk. Which is just as well, because that delicious, sugary goop really does cover up a lot of sins. A traditional ca phe sua da is made with a small metal filter called a phin, which sits on top of a cup and slowly drips down onto the condensed milk below. After about five minutes, the mixture is stirred together with ice into a thick, sweet, dessert-like drink that is almost certainly terrible for you. Some Vietnamese restaurants and cafés understandably can't be bothered with the time-consuming phin and use instant coffee instead. Many Vietnamese Americans have also taken to using chicory coffee. Without getting into the "authenticity" debate—it's as Vietnamese as a Mission burrito is Mexican, however you want to interpret that—if you want a ca phe sua da as served in Saigon, Cafe Du Monde ain't it. (I've seen instant used in Vietnam, so it isn't "wrong," but it's certainly less fun.) Find it: Any Vietnamese restaurant or sandwich shop.

One drink where instant coffee definitely is called for is the Greek frappé, which for some scientific reason way beyond the scope of this slideshow, requires those specific coffee granules to achieve its distinctively foamy texture. The theory behind the drink is not so dissimilar from a Shakerato: Instant coffee, sugar, and cold water are hand-shaken or machine-blended into a super frothy mixture, then topped with milk (or evaporated milk) and ice. The drink was allegedly invented by a Greek Nestlé employee in the 1950s, when he couldn't find any hot water. It's now so popular in Greece that Nescafé actually makes its own branded frappé shaker. Even in the States, frappés are commonly made with imported Greek Nescafé, which is stronger than the American variant. Find it: Greek-owned restaurants and cafés, especially in neighborhoods with large Greek communities.

As phylloxera was to the global wine industry, Australians are an unstoppable, destructive plague that have infested coffee shops around the world, tainting them with their horrible diction and idiotic drinks like the babyccino. As a result you can now find Australian-owned and/or -staffed cafés in every reasonably sized North American city. As the descendants of convicts, they will almost certainly steal your girlfriend or boyfriend and give them koala chlamydia, but on the upside, they make a delicious version of iced coffee. Essentially a drinkable affogato, Australian iced coffee is espresso and vanilla ice cream topped with milk (and sometimes whipped cream, though that is, in this Antipodean's opinion, an unnecessary and deeply un-Australian affectation) and served with a straw in a tall glass. Just keep an eye on your valuables. Find it: An Australian café in America is really easy to spot, as they're all full of expats complaining about the USCIS and streaming the cricket on their MacBooks. Failing that, any time you hear a barista with an Australian accent, they can probably make you one if you ask nicely. If they angrily reply, "I'm a New Zealander," run for your life.

It's not really its own brewing method—most bottled cold brew is made somewhere on the style scale from New Orleans to Kyoto, only in much larger quantities. But buying cold brew by the bottle or growler has taken off in a massive way over the past three years and is definitely a phenomena unto itself. There are two categories of bottled cold brew: ready-to-drink bottles—Stumptown Stubbies are probably the best known, but just about every third-wave roaster seems to be jumping on the bandwagon these days—and cold-brew concentrate like Chameleon and Grady's, which you have to dilute with water and/or milk yourself (but also stretch a lot further). For my money, going to a café and paying $3.50 only to have the barista pop a bottle cap takes a little something away from the experience, but they're great to keep in the fridge. Find it: At many, many top coffee shops, as well as high-end grocery stores. Plenty of roasters sell online and ship, too.

I do not know what is in this nor how it is made, though I have a feeling that once you finish a Venti Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino® Blended Crème, you find an instant type 2 diabetes diagnosis written on the bottom of the cup. The Frappuccino® has its own website where you can design your own Frappuccino® and share it on Facebook so people will know to unfriend you. Assuming this website is to be believed, these are actual things people can (and presumably have) added to their Frappuccino®s: matcha powder, strawberry fruit juice, protein powder, and "toffee nut" (note: this is not an actual species of nut). Ten MILLION people "like" Starbucks Frappuccino® on Facebook. Find it: It's Starbucks. If you can't find one, consider yourself lucky.