“Why does it cost so much? There’s less here than in hot coffee!” they would cry. I smiled, nodded and took their money. I didn’t know why it was more expensive either, but an extra quarter hardly seemed worth all the fuss. And, unlike hot coffee, making the iced variety at home calls for preparation that most people just aren’t willing to put in. At hotspots around town this summer, however, iced-coffee prices can be a whopping $3 more than a comparable cup of the hot stuff.
So why is this tasty summer beverage so much more then your average cup of Joe? According to baristas in coffee-shopheavy Greenpoint, iced coffee demands more time and effort.
“It takes more energy to make it,” said Colleen Duhamel, a barista and coffee aficionado at Café Grumpy (193 Meserole Ave. at Diamond St., Brooklyn, 718-349-7623). “It also uses more coffee [beans] and ice. In the end, you end up paying for part of the electric bill.”
That’s not the only reason. As regular coffee gets fancier, so does the iced drink. At Café Grumpy, they don’t make your grandfather’s iced coffee. Instead of the “refrigerate hot coffee” method, they have two newfangled processes. You can either spend $2.75 (75 cents more than 16ounce hot) for one made by brewing extra strong coffee over ice, or you can pay up to $7 for a specially made iced coffee using the $11,000 Clover coffee maker.
A third method, cold brewing, involves making the beverage with cool water and letting the grinds soak for 18 hours. This process is used by both the Brooklyn Standard (188 Nassau Ave., at Humboldt St., Brooklyn, 718-472-2150) and Lucky Shot (145 Driggs Ave., betw. Humboldt & Russell Sts., Brooklyn, 347-599-2351).
“When you brew from that method, it extracts all the flavors from the coffee without the sharp bite,” says Cody Utzman, owner of Brooklyn Standard. “It’s just a far superior taste, and it’s consistent each time. But it is more costly.”
Like Duhamel, Utzman rationalized his $3, 16-ounce iced coffee ($1 more than a hot coffee and $1 less than a large iced) costs more because the cold press uses three to four times more whole beans per gallon than the hot coffee does. Also, the $500 machinery and special filters add a pretty penny. And where Lucky Shot only charges $2.50 for its equivalent, Brooklyn Standard charges that extra 50 cents for biodegradable cups, lids and straws, which are about six times more expensive than regular to-go cups.
But there’s no need to despair if it’s hot outside. If you need that caffeine jolt, and you don’t want to blow subway money every morning, pick up a cup of iced coffee at a less trendy, less elite, less socially aware coffee shop like Uro Café (277 Driggs Ave. at Leonard St.; 718-599- 1230) and get one the way I used to brew it for $2.
Even cheaper, the deli on the corner of Nassau and Leonard sell their 16-ounce coffees for $1.75. Unless you are a true coffee connoisseur—or don’t drench your beverage with cream and sugar the way most people do— it all tastes the same. In the end, you still get a buzz.
