The ColdWave- Simple and Delicious Iced Coffee

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It is the end of July, which usually means the temperatures are soaring. It’s muggy. It’s gross. It is however, the perfect weather for enjoying a refreshingly cold iced coffee.

In the past, I’ve talked about cold brew, Japanese iced coffee, Kyoto drip coffee, and iced Aeropress shake ups. I’ve even talked about coffee cold brewed with a vacuum cleaner. Today I want to discuss a new product that was sent to me for review. The ColdWave by Ice Cold Now.

I typically don’t agree to do sponsored posts unless I am pretty gungho about the product. When a representative from Ice Cold Now got in touch and asked if I would like to do I review, I went over to their website and checked it out. I was excited about the concept and decided to check it out.

What is the ColdWave?

The ColdWave is a beverage chiller. It can take a cup of hot coffee and chill it down to near freezing temperatures in about two minutes. It consists of a squarish (baseball diamondish) shaped pitcher about 5 inches by 5 inches and 6 inches high. There is also the cooling mechanism an insert that fits snuggly into the pitcher.

The ColdWave is made out of BPA free plastic and purified water. The insert stores in your freezer so it will always be ready for deployment at a moments notice.

The Problem With Iced Coffee

When I want an iced coffee,  I typically opt for the Japanese flash brew method. It makes a great cup of coffee and you don’t need any extra equipment (except something that makes ice I guess). The problem with the Japanese iced coffee method is it changes your brewing recipe significantly. You are taking out one third (even one half in some recipes) of the water and replacing it with ice. This means you have to add extra agitation to make sure you extract the same amount of solubles from the coffee.

I love the Japanese flash brew method but it can be a little inconsistent especially if you don’t brew with it very often.

The better way to make an iced coffee is to make a cup of coffee your usual way, the way you are most comfortable with and then flash chill it to near freezing temperatures without diluting the coffee.

There are a few other devices on the market that can do this: the Hyperchiller which has a smaller capacity and the Coil which was running around 260 bucks (and is no longer being manufactured it seems).

There is also a method I heard about on the I Brew My Own Coffee podcast. Fill up a mason jar (with a lid of course) and submerge it in a bucket of ice water to flash chill it. I have never tried this method but I feel like that is a tad more effort than I am looking to spend when I have a hankering for an iced coffee.

The Cold Wave Solution

Enter the ColdWave.

It is relatively inexpensive at 40 dollars, it can cool down two 16 fluid ounce batches of piping hot coffee before needing to be refrozen and you can brew your coffee with your favorite recipe, chilling the coffee nearly instantly afterwards.

One of my favorite things I have done with the Cold Wave is to chill only half of the coffee I have brewed and tasted the two drinks side-by-side. Heck, I have even taken my coffee when I was halfway done with it and cooled it off with the ColdWave, thrown in a little ice and headed off on an errand.

ColdWave clean up is pretty simple. Rinse the insert with water and let the water drain off for a minute or two. The pitcher can be washed with soap and water and is even dishwasher safe. Put the insert back in the freezer to wait for next time. This clean up process may be a little trickier if you are going to try and chill a bottle of wine or something syrupy and sticky (it chills more than just coffee).

Quite frankly, I am pretty geeked about the ColdWave.

It is simple but effective. It makes a cup of iced coffee as great as your time perfected, manual brewing recipes. You really can’t beat the fact that you can chill down coffee brewed  with your normal recipes, that is huge. If you drink a lot of iced coffee and especially if you into flash chilling, the ColdWave is well worth checking out.

Cheers!