This is a sponsored article on behalf of Pact Coffee.
If your mornings aren't complete without a stop-off to pick up an iced coffee, why not make it yourself at home? Maybe you've never dared try it yourself because you thought there's no way you could make it as well as a barista can?
London start-up Pact wants to help everyone make better quality coffee at home, easily. So they deliver super-fresh, ethically-sourced, specialist coffee to your door.
To prove to us how easy it is to make iced coffee as well as a barista does, they invited us to their HQ in Bermondsey. There, Pact's head of coffee Will Corby gave us a masterclass where we quickly realised our fears of needing to learn about grind sizes and types of roasting were totally unfounded...
What you really need
Turns out, all you need is:
- some ice
- the right coffee
- a glass
- a coffee cone and filter, (you can get a free kit from Pact if you quote code Londonist54 when you order your first bag of coffee).
How to make iced coffee like a pro
1. Fill a glass to the top with ice
(This means the glass is 50% ice by volume — the optimum ratio of ice to coffee.)
2. Grab your coffee
We used Finca Buenos Aires from Pact's range. "When making a normal cup of coffee, the golden ratio is 60-70g of coffee per litre," explains Will. "That means you need 17g of coffee for a normal-sized mug of coffee."
People who are really into their coffee will weigh out the amount of coffee they use to the gram, but we don't need to worry about that. The v60 filter kit comes with a scoop, a level measure of which makes one cup of coffee. Alternatively you can just use a heaped tablespoon.
3. The measure
Put two scoops of coffee into the filter, and tap gently so it levels out. This is twice as much coffee as you'd use for a normal cup of coffee, but because the ice makes up 50% of what's going in the glass, it gets diluted to normal strength.
4. Pour a little and leave
Pour a very small amount of just off-the-boil water over the coffee — just enough to cover it. Then leave for 30 seconds.
This allows the air to escape from the grounds, meaning more water will reach more of the coffee, giving a more intense brew.
5. Pour more
After 30 seconds, slowly pour in more of the water. Keep an eye on how much is running through the filter so your glass doesn't overflow.
6. Drink
It's as easy as that.
The secret
The secret is that Pact do all the hard work for you: Will selects the best, specialist coffee, and the company pays the farmers a good price. Aissa uses her years of knowledge to roast it to exactly the right specification to get the best taste from the bean.
They even grind the beans to the right size for the method of brewing you prefer. Why's this important? Most coffees you buy in supermarkets are 'suitable for all coffee makers' — something a barista would regard as 'suitable for none'.
Grinding the beans to the right size for the method of brewing means you get the best flavour, and end up with no sludge in the bottom of your mug.
In essence, Pact puts all the secrets that coffee professionals know, in your hands — without you needing to pore over books to learn any of it.
Make coffee as good as a professional makes it, without all the practise. Order your first Pact Coffee pack today and get a free v60 filter kit by using the code Londonist54.
