It's iced coffee season. If a coffee doesn't clink when I stir it, I'm not interested.
But making iced coffee with your home espresso setup can be tricky. For one, you need a lot of ice to keep your espresso and milk at that refreshing temperature, and if you're working with hot espresso, your ice will immediately melt on impact.
That will leave you with a watered-down espresso and a lukewarm iced coffee. No, thank you.
A lot of modern espresso machines come with fancy cold brew settings that will extract a colder espresso to prevent your ice from melting. Note, it's not cold when it's extracted, just the temperature of the water in your tank.
I've tested a lot of these machines, and the good news is, you don't need one. All you need is this $25 gadget that can turn espresso, Americano, and even hot tea into an iced drink in an instant.
Meet the HyperChiller
The HyperChiller is simple. You add water to an outer and an inner chamber, which sandwiches a middle basket in ice. So when you pour your drink in through the lid, it immediately chills it from all sides, bringing it to ice-cold levels in under a minute.
When you're done, simply pop the gadget back in the freezer to re-freeze your ice chambers.
My favorite way to use the HyperChiller is to immediately bring down the temperature of my double espresso before I pour it over some iced milk. But if you're partial to an iced Americano or even an iced tea, it will give your drink the same treatment, and it won't water it down.
All of the flavor, none of the melting
Not only does this prevent your drink from becoming watery, the HyperChiller also allows you to extract espresso the way it's meant to be brewed.
There's nothing wrong with the cold brew coffee you'll get from machines like the Ninja Luxe Café or the Breville Oracle Jet, but the flavor will never compete with an espresso that's been extracted at high pressure and temperatures. That's where you get the dark, rich notes and gorgeous crema you're looking for in a great brew.
So when you extract a hot coffee the way it's meant to be brewed and then chill it, you'll get all the great flavors, but none of the hot temperatures that can hamper the taste of your iced coffee.
I exclusively use my HyperChiller for coffee, but the brand claims that it can chill any drink in a pinch. Whether it's a peach tea or a glass of chardonnay, you just need to pour in your drink through the lid, leave it to chill, and pour.
