This is one of those posts that is actually quite simple and yet the effect is makes me shake my head and chuckle.
This is just a normal coffee but my word it’s amazing!
You literally drink Hot and Ice coffee at the same time, it’s not a Zen philosophy of “there is cold in heat and heat in cold” type of this – it actually is both hot and cold at simultaneously!
This seems remarkable because liquids mix and do not, and will not, no matter how much you beg, stay where they are. They like to mingle, and slide and move around.
Enter the wonderful world of gels! By making a very thin gel we are able to make something very similar to a liquid that stays, mostly, where you put it AND retains it’s temperature much more than liquids of the same composition.
Heston Blumenthal has an hot and iced tea recipe that uses Gellan as a gelling agent. I’ve opted for Agar agar. The ratio of Agar to liquid is 1 Teaspoon : 1 Litre of liquid, and as I only needed 2 cups worth of coffee I only used half a teaspoon of Agar.
Heat the Agar with the coffee in a pan till it’s about to boil so that the agar can melt and go into solution with the coffee. Then let the solution cool. This will cause the solution to solidify slightly. Using a stick blender, blend to a smooth consistency, and put through a sieve.
Split the coffee into two containers, one will be your hot coffee and the other will be your iced coffee. I added a little bit of salt to get rid of excess bitterness in the coffee and added some extra sugar to the iced coffee to make it’s taste more pronounced.
Place something to separate your glass into two and using syringes, inject the two coffees into the glass.
Carefully take out your separator, place some foam on top and then sprinkle some cinnamon on one side and some cayenne pepper on the other. Serve as soon as you can.
You can buy your own Bodum double walled glasses here.