Thursday, July 08, 2010

Making Iced Coffee at Home

I love iced coffee... maybe even more than I like hot coffee, especially in the summer when it is too hot for hot beverages (especially this week when it has been over 100 degree every day, not normal for the mid-Atlantic region). Anyway, it was getting really expensive to buy iced coffee a couple of days a week so I decided to start making it at home.

1. Brew coffee. I have found that 12 cups gets me through the week. I like Target's Archer Farms Organic Fair Trade coffee.
2. Decant coffee into a pitcher of some sort. I have a Le Cruset pitcher than hubby gave for for Christmas a few years ago, I use that and put a plastic bowl cover over the top to keep other food smells out.
3. Refrigerate.

4. Find and appropriate drinking vessel. I am sure that any glass would do, but since I drink thins in the car on the way to work I have opted for something with a lid and a straw.

5. Fix it the way you like it. I put a lot of ice in the cup (mostly because I brew the coffee really strong), then pour in the coffee almost to the top, then a little sugar free vanilla syrup, and then a touch of cream.


It is very easy to make at home if you plan ahead just a little bit... saves a lot of $ too. I figured that I was buying about 4 iced coffees a week at, let's say, $2 each. That is $8 a week on coffee... over the summer that is approximately $100 + in coffee alone. WOW!

The coffee was $7 (I think) and the vanilla syrup was $4 (at Home Goods), lets say that I will need two of each to get me through the summer, so $25 in supplies... $75 + in savings for me :)

1 comment:

Emilie Lynne said...

If you like the chai from starbucks, check the aisle in Walmart where they keep teabags/coffee. They sell the concentrate Tazo Chai in cardboard boxes (?) that you can pour into a glass and fill the rest with milk. It's the exact same thing they use at Starbucks!! I think it was about $5-6 and I can get 6 drinks from one container usually. It's so worth it! And it's soooo good iced. Speaking of which, I am out. I need to go to Walmart!