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Iced Coffee
Ingredients.
Four ounces of Coffee (equal quantities of Mocha and Plantation).
One pint of boiling Water.
Two gills of Milk.
One gill of Cream.
Two ounces of Sugar.
Make the coffee, stir in the milk, cream, and sugar, pour into a jug, and pack it well in ice; allow it to stand for from two to three hours; the water must be drained from the ice occasionally, and fresh ice added. The coffee must be freshly made, and should be freshly ground.
A strong sweetened coffee chilled by burial in ice rather than by refrigeration. The measures are imperial, and the coffee-to-water ratio is far higher than anything you would drink hot.
- Gills and pintsThis is a British book, so a gill is 5 fl oz and a pint is 20 fl oz. Two gills of milk is 1¼ cups, one gill of cream is a generous ½ cup, and the pint of boiling water is 2½ US cups.
- The strength is deliberateFour ounces of ground coffee to a pint of water is roughly three times normal brewing strength — closer to a concentrate. It is built that way because the milk, cream and sugar dilute it and because chilling flattens perceived bitterness and aroma. Do not scale the coffee down to ordinary strength or the finished drink will taste watery.
- Mocha and PlantationMocha meant Yemeni or Ethiopian beans shipped through the port of Mokha; "Plantation" was a trade term for cleaner, milder colonial coffee, usually Ceylon or Java. A half-and-half blend of a fruity Ethiopian and a mild washed Central American is the nearest modern equivalent.
- Grind and freshnessThe insistence on freshly ground, freshly made coffee is the hinge of the recipe. Held for two to three hours over ice, stale or oxidised coffee turns papery and sour, and there is no heat or spice to hide behind.
- Packing in iceThe jug is packed round with ice, and the melt water drained off and fresh ice added so the packing stays cold rather than turning tepid. A refrigerator does the same job with less attention; two to three hours is still about right to chill it through.
- Sugar goes in hotTwo ounces (about ¼ cup) of sugar is stirred in with the milk and cream while the coffee is still hot, so it dissolves readily; stirred into the chilled jug it dissolves much more slowly.
- Yield and servingRather under a quart, which is four good glasses or tumblers. Serve it as it is, without extra ice in the glass — further dilution undoes the point of it.
The method reflects the economics of ice. Natural ice, much of it shipped from Norway and North America into British ice wells and merchants' stores, was by the later nineteenth century cheap enough for a substantial household to pack a jug for three hours — and the instruction to drain the melt water and top up is a reminder that the cold was a consumable to be managed, not a switch to be flipped. The named beans point the same way: Mocha, from the Yemeni port that gave the word its currency, was the prestige coffee of the period, and blending it with a milder "Plantation" lot was a common practice.