The Summer of Flavored Cold Brew
and the rise of the iced beverage
Cold Brew in the Wild
Running errands earlier this month at Tesco, I had to stop and do a double take.
Passing through the coffee aisle, I spotted a dedicated section for iced coffee. They had displayed all the syrups, alternative milks, and toppings you could ever need on a special little endcap. Coupled with these syrups was a selection of bottled espresso concentres, specifically designed and marketed for easy iced coffee.
Iced coffee? In the UK? In the grocery store? Now this was new. This summer, iced coffees and flavored cold brews seem to be having their moment in the sun.
This is an exciting development for me. As an American living in the UK, I sometimes wake up dreaming of an American style iced coffee. Before moving to London, I lived on the Upper West Side of New York, and my apartment was directly above a Dunkin’. Let’s just say those employees saw a lot of me.
For those unfamiliar, Dunkin’ is an American fast-food chain that specializes in coffee and donuts. It’s incredibly common on the North East Coast of the US, and a staple. They serve lots of different kinds of coffee, but I’ll always have a soft spot for their original iced blend.
I used to march down the stairs of my apartment building in the morning to the front door of Dunkin’, order a vanilla iced coffee the size of my head, and march back up to start working on my master’s dissertation. As much as I have a passion for well-sourced, speciality coffee, I also just have a soft spot for cheap, fun coffee.
When I moved to the UK, I didn’t know how much I’d come to miss aggressively average iced coffee. Or even iced coffee in general. When I arrived in London in 2022, an iced coffee, let alone an iced beverage at all, was hard to come by. Sure, in the summer, cafés would (sometimes) have ice, but if they did, you would often be granted a few cubes in a very small cup. I once read on Reddit that the sole Dunkin’ in London, on Baker Street, functioned as a meetup for desperate Americans in search of a large cup with ice.
While I never made it to the desperate Americans meetup at Baker Street, and accepted my fate as a flat white drinker, I have noticed an interesting shift in London’s coffee scene lately.
Iced Beverages on the Rise
I’m not sure exactly when it started, but I first noticed people carrying large iced matcha lattes everywhere. Large cups, with ice. These matchas came in various flavors: strawberry, white chocolate, vanilla, you name it.
Other iced drinks followed suit, iced lattes, and most importantly (for me) cold brew. I started to see it on coffee shop menus and even in grocery stores. I was shocked to see cold brew sachets for sale in M&S, for example.
So, what’s going on? Where’s this shift coming from? I think, as I’ve mentioned before in Coffee in Hand, the way people consume their coffee, and maybe even caffeine as a whole, is changing. Customers are increasingly interested in the new, the exciting, and the over-the-top.
Whether this means a lime green matcha or a vanilla iced coffee with cold foam, people want something they can post about. The wow factor of exclusively specialty coffee has worn off.
The rise of coffee as a social media phenomenon means that businesses and consumers alike have been forced to up their “wow” factor to capture attention. This means big sizes and big flavors. Iced beverages lend themselves to this in a way hot tea or coffee doesn’t—adding raspberry syrup to a hot mug of coffee doesn’t have half the visual effect as pouring it into a large cup with ice.
Finally, coffee is expensive. If you’re going out to buy it, it better be interesting, and good. As coffee has become more expensive and the cost of living increases across the board, going out to buy a coffee has become a luxury. Everyone has learned to make their coffee at home.
Most people don’t have a crazy amount of syrups or an ice machine. Getting a “fancy” flavored iced coffee out probably makes more sense than getting a drip coffee or a cappuccino you might be able to make at home.
These trends, while concentrated in the US, inevitably filter over, especially with the rise of TikTok and other social media as beverage inspiration. The result? A Tesco aisle dedicated to iced coffee this summer, and London coffee shops selling cold brew and flavored iced lattes.
Cold Brew at Home
All that being said, plain cold brew is probably one of the easiest coffees to make at home. All you need is water, a pitcher, and some coarse ground coffee. Since it’s brewed slowly in the fridge, it’s incredibly forgiving and difficult to make overly bitter.
The one thing to look out for is the bean to water ratio—too much coffee and you’ll end up with a concentrate that will very quickly over-caffeinate you. Stick to a 1:8 ratio, or if you accidentally make it too strong, mix it with water.
Despite its ease, I don’t usually make mine from scratch. Due to my Dunkin’ nostalgia, I actually keep Dunkin’ cold brew sachets on hand—gatherings from my trips home to the US or gifts from family and friends who come to visit. Tastes like home, I guess.
It’s been pretty hot in London lately, so I’ve been shying away from my usual drip coffee at home in favor of cold brew. I keep the jug in my fridge and just pour myself a nice glass every morning. So easy.
If I want to make it fancy, I add a cold foam top. The other day I made a vanilla earl grey cold foam and loved the results. Cold foam is also super simple to make, add your flavors of choice to a half milk, half cream combo, and blend. I use a little hand blender to make mine, but you could also pop into a full-size blender.
As time goes on, it will be interesting to see how beverage trends continue to trickle over from the internet and into the supermarkets.
Anyways, happy cold brew summer.
It’s quite funny how some trends spread and others don’t. Especially amongst the English-speaking nations. There are many Dunkin Donuts here in Austria, even in smaller places, and I think the locals only go there for hot drinks in winter and iced drinks in summer. As in they probably sell very few actual donuts. I’ve never been once, even back in the US. I’m also probably the only American who doesn’t like ice in drinks.
There's a new Dunkin in Wardour Street now! And also quite bigger than the one in Baker St. But it's still not the same than the ones in the US. Which are my guilty pleasure whenever I'm over there or at least find myself connecting at an American airport.