Cold Coffee Recipe: Blender, Café-Style Iced Latte, Frappe and Cold Brew

From May to September, most of Pakistan wants its coffee cold. In Karachi it's the humidity, in Lahore and Multan it's the 45 degree afternoons, and even in Islamabad the hot cup goes away until October. This cold coffee recipe guide gives you four drinks you can make at home: the classic blender cold coffee with Nescafe or any instant coffee, a café-style iced latte with espresso, a thick frappe, and slow cold brew. Every recipe uses grams and millilitres so you can repeat a good glass instead of guessing.

What do you need for cold coffee at home?

For the simple version you need instant coffee, cold milk, sugar, ice and a blender or a jar with a tight lid. Espresso, a frother or syrups are upgrades, not requirements.

• Coffee: instant coffee for the blender version, espresso or strong brewed coffee for café-style drinks, coarse ground coffee for cold brew.
• Milk: full-fat milk gives the creamiest body and the best foam. Low-fat milk works but tastes thinner. Chill it properly; warm milk melts the ice and waters the drink down.
• Sweetener: sugar, simple syrup or a flavoured coffee syrup. Sugar dissolves poorly in cold liquid, so always dissolve it in the hot coffee first.
• Ice: plenty of it, made from water you would happily drink. If your tap water tastes of chlorine or minerals, so will your ice.

Cold coffee recipe with Nescafe or instant coffee (blender method)

This is the frothy, light brown cold coffee most Pakistani households and dhaba-style cafés serve. It takes about five minutes and works with Nescafe or any other instant coffee.

Ingredients for one large glass (about 300 ml)

• 2 level teaspoons instant coffee (about 4 g)
• 2 teaspoons sugar, or to taste
• 30 ml hot water (about 2 tablespoons)
• 200 ml chilled full-fat milk
• 5 to 6 ice cubes
• Optional: 1 small scoop vanilla ice cream, a few drops of vanilla, or chocolate sauce for the glass

Method

1. Put the instant coffee and sugar in a cup, add the hot water and stir until no granules are left.
2. Pour the coffee mixture, cold milk and ice into the blender.
3. Blend on high for 30 to 45 seconds, until the top turns pale and foamy.
4. If you like it thicker, add the ice cream and blend for another 10 seconds.
5. Pour straight away into a chilled glass. The foam starts to settle within a few minutes.

Want it stronger? Go up to 3 teaspoons of instant coffee rather than adding less milk, so the drink stays smooth. Want it sweeter but not grainy? Use simple syrup (equal parts sugar and hot water, cooled) instead of extra sugar.

Cold coffee without a machine or blender

No blender, or the light has gone during load shedding? Use a clean jar or a protein shaker. Dissolve the coffee and sugar in hot water as above, add the cold milk and ice, close the lid tightly and shake hard for 20 to 30 seconds. You get less foam than a blender, but the taste is the same.

A second no-machine trick is to whip the coffee first. Beat 2 teaspoons of instant coffee, 2 teaspoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of hot water with a spoon or hand mixer until it turns thick and light, the same base Pakistani homes use for phenti hui coffee. Spoon it over a glass of ice-cold milk and stir. Our guide on how to make coffee at home covers whipped coffee in more detail.

How do cafés make iced coffee? The café-style iced latte

Cafés build an iced latte from fresh espresso, cold milk and ice, without a blender. The espresso gives a deeper, roastier flavour than instant coffee, and the milk stays smooth rather than foamy.

Café-style iced latte (one 350 ml glass)

1. Fill a glass about three-quarters with ice.
2. If you want it sweet, add 15 to 20 ml of syrup to the glass first.
3. Pull a double shot: roughly 18 g of ground coffee in, about 36 to 40 g of espresso out, in 25 to 30 seconds. Our espresso ratio guide explains those numbers.
4. Stir the hot espresso into the syrup so it dissolves, then pour in 150 to 180 ml of cold milk.
5. Stir once and serve. For a layered look, pour the milk first and the espresso slowly on top.

An iced Americano is the same idea with water instead of milk: a double shot over ice with 120 to 150 ml of cold water. A cold mocha adds 15 to 20 g of chocolate sauce stirred into the espresso before the milk. Taste the drink before adding more syrup; chocolate sauce already brings plenty of sugar.

Don't have an espresso machine? A moka pot gives a strong, concentrated coffee that works well in an iced latte. Use about 60 ml of moka pot coffee in place of the double shot. If you are thinking of buying a machine, read our home espresso machine guide for Pakistan first.

Cold coffee ratios at a glance

Use this table as a starting point. Adjust coffee strength first, sweetness second.

How to make a frappe at home

A frappe is a blended ice drink: coffee, milk, sweetener and a lot of ice, blended until it's thick enough for a straw. The hard part is stopping it from separating into watery ice and foam.

1. Put about 1 cup of ice (roughly 150 g) in the blender.
2. Add a cooled double espresso, or 4 to 6 g of instant coffee dissolved in 30 ml of hot water.
3. Add 150 ml of cold milk and 20 to 30 ml of syrup or sugar syrup.
4. Blend on high until no ice chunks are left, about 30 to 60 seconds.
5. Top with whipped cream and a drizzle of caramel or chocolate if you like.

Cafés usually add a frappe base powder, which contains a thickener, so the drink stays smooth. At home, a scoop of vanilla ice cream does a similar job.

Syrups and sweeteners: how much is enough?

For a 300 to 350 ml cold drink, 15 to 20 ml of syrup (roughly one to one and a half pumps on most café pumps) is a good starting point. Go higher only for frappes and dessert-style drinks.

At our academy we train with MONIN and 1883 syrups, the kind of flavoured syrups many cafés use for caramel, vanilla and hazelnut drinks. Whatever brand you use, add it to the hot espresso or dissolved coffee first, because syrup mixes far better into warm liquid than into cold milk. If you are making syrup at home, a 1:1 simple syrup keeps in the fridge for a couple of weeks in a clean bottle.

Iced coffee vs cold brew: what is the difference?

Iced coffee is hot-brewed coffee that is cooled or poured over ice. Cold brew is never heated: coarse coffee steeps in cold water for many hours, which gives a smoother, less acidic-tasting drink with a heavier body.

Simple cold brew recipe

1. Grind 100 g of coffee extra coarse, like cracked black pepper. Our coffee grind size chart shows the texture.
2. Stir it into 800 ml of cold, clean drinking water in a jar.
3. Cover and leave in the fridge for 12 to 18 hours.
4. Strain through a fine sieve lined with a paper filter or clean cotton cloth.
5. Serve the concentrate diluted about 1:1 with water or milk over ice.

The concentrate keeps for about a week in a sealed bottle in the fridge.

Flash-brewed (Japanese-style) iced coffee

If you have a V60 or other pour-over, brew hot coffee straight onto ice. Replace about 40% of the brew water with ice in the jug: for example, 20 g of coffee, 180 ml of hot water through the filter and 120 g of ice below. The hot coffee chills instantly and keeps its aroma.

Common cold coffee mistakes

• Adding sugar to cold milk. It sinks and stays grainy. Dissolve it in the hot coffee first.
• Pouring hot coffee into a full glass of ice and serving straight away. Half the ice melts and the drink tastes watery. Let espresso cool for a minute, or use more ice and a bigger shot.
• Watery drinks on hot days. Freeze leftover coffee in an ice tray and use coffee cubes instead of plain ice.
• Fine grounds in cold brew. They make the brew muddy, bitter and slow to strain. Keep it extra coarse.
• Stale beans. Old coffee tastes flat, cold or hot. Check the roast date and read arabica vs robusta to choose beans that suit milk drinks.

Learn café-style cold drinks hands-on

Making cold coffee at home is easy. Making thirty consistent iced lattes and frappes during a summer rush is a trained skill. At Barista Studio, our one academy in Bahria Town Phase 6, Islamabad, students pull shots on commercial espresso machines and build iced and blended drinks with MONIN and 1883 syrups. Students travel from other cities too, and the 10 AM to 1 PM class time leaves the afternoon free. See the programs on our barista courses page or read more about coffee training in Pakistan, and book your seat on WhatsApp when you are ready.

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