Ottawa has been HOT lately, my friends. Sticky, sunny, humid, and sweaty. I won’t dare complain, seeing as we get so much cold weather and I’d MUCH rather bask in the heat than see snow covering the ground.

Despite having the luxury of air conditioning, I still find it warm in the house, and so, following the lead of Tim Horton’s, I thought I’d see about introducing iced coffee to our menu. Seems easy, right? Brew up some coffee, dump in a few ice cubes – done!

Then I started researching a bit and realized that this would probably result in a watery mess with little flavour. And I decided to experiment with a quick way to make my own iced coffee!

Quick and Easy Iced Coffee – at home!

Step 1: Measure out 1/3 cup of ground coffee, and 12 ounces of cold water (1.5 cups). The second time I made this, I found a bag of Starbucks whole beans, dumped a handful into my pestle and mortar and ground ‘em up, then measured out the 1/3 cup. It tasted better than the first time, when I used the pre-ground stuff.

Dump coffee grounds into a jar or container and seal it. Optional: add 1 tsp of vanilla and 1T brown sugar.

Then stick it on the refrigerator overnight to let the coffee slowly mingle and steep.

Step 2: In the morning, use a fine mesh strainer lined with a paper towel or a coffee filter to strain out the grounds. Press a spoon on the mushy grounds to get every last drop of coffee goodness. Drip by drip!

Step 3: Add milk/cream/sugar as per usual and stir.

Step 4: Fill 2 glasses with ice cubes and pour in the coffee. Sip with a straw, and relax, and enjoy the warm weather!

*These measurements make about 2 servings.