It’s 9:30 in the morning and I’m giving up. I have been trying to fall asleep since Luka’s show ended with no success and I just got up for a quick peeing session (everything I do is a session). On my way back I stubbed my toe on the chair which sent the fat Argos catalogue, which was sitting peacefully minding it’s own business on it, flying onto my other foot. In case you don’t know what an Argos catalogue is then think “phonebook” you won’t be too far off.

How loud can you say “OweeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEE”? I know I can say it loud enough to wake up everyone in my building and the one next to this one. Unfortunately this also means that any chance I had of falling asleep is gone. I got even more wide awake than I was before.

So I decided to face my fate and went and made me an iced coffee. You may have noticed I’ve been saying that a lot recently. Iced coffee is my new thing. I no longer have coffee, I have “iced coffee”. It’s not completely true, only when I’m at home (and I spend a lot of hours in here) I make myself iced coffee. It may still be winter, actually no, it’s spring now I guess! Well it’s still cold out there and the weather is not exactly spring-y so you know what I mean. So, were was I? Ah, yes, it may still be cold out there and everywhere that is not under my duvet but I’m defying the cold and fighting it with more cold.

Did that make sense to you? I assume it didn’t because to be frank it doesn’t make any sense to me either. Moving right along now, because there’s no use in lingering over things that are not useful when lingered over. (I bet THAT made sense)

This ice coffee is very easy to make and it’s something I picked up in Greece. It’s called Frappé (I don’t know why it has a French spelling when it’s Greek) and it’s like the national coffee drink there. There’s also the “Greek coffee” which is like a “Turkish coffee” (if not the same).

To make your own Greek Frappé you will need:

• A shaker or a milk frother (preferably the second which is quicker and produces a smoother foam)
• A plastic, disposable straw
• One (or two in my case ) spoonfuls of Nescafé Original (it has to be the “Original” or “Classic” brand or it won’t make a good foam, trust me I’ve tried them)
• The amount of sugar you like to have in your coffee
• Ice cubes
• And finally water (preferably cold)
• If you like milk in your coffee you can add milk in the end also

Here come the instructions:

1. Grab a tall water glass from the shelf (or the shaker if you’re not using a frother)
2. Put the coffee in the glass (or shaker) (most people use 2 spoonfuls of coffee because it’s a cold drink and the coffee taste gets drowned in the cold water)
3. Put the amount of sugar you normally put in your coffee (or if you like your coffee to taste like poison you can use none)
4. Now comes the slightly tricky part. You need to put just the right amount of water in so that you can produce foam and not a whirlpool of coffeewater which will eventually splash on you (especially if you’re as clumsy as I am). I’d say an inch (or a little less) in the glass should be enough. If you’re using a shaker and not a frother use a little more than that
5. For those of you using frothers the rest of the process is very quick and requires very little physical exertion. Simply dunk the frother in the glass and turn it on. I use one of those cheap hand held milk frothers that run on batteries. Now simply move it around a bit and up and down a few times and you will soon have a very thick coffee cream in your glass.
6. For those of you using a shaker, well what can I say? Shake it baby! It takes about a minute (or two depending on how fast/strongly you shake). Once you’re done, carefully open the shaker and pour the contents into a tall glass. The foam won’t be as good as when you use a frother so you might consider springing for one. They’re like £6 here. I don’t know how much that is in American money but it’s probably around $10-$15.
7. Now drop a few ice cubes in the glass
8. If you want to have milk in it I suggest to pour it in now as the foam is very thick and if you’re not careful the milk will stay on top or even overflow out of the glass
9. Fill the remaining of the glass with water
10. Put the straw in the glass
11. Enjoy and pretend you’re somewhere warm and sunny like Greece!

The final result should look something like this (if you like your coffee white).

And here’s the photo I stole from the Wikipedia article, this is what it looks like without milk:

Let me know if you attempt this and how you liked it.

Related posts:
on the train back from training (part 1; still on my afternoon coffee buzz)
Greek Fire
then i dropped the plate back into the sink and went back to give him a big hug
give me the coffee and noone gets hurt
what water bra? be posh! go for an Evian bra!

Written by Colin Brooks on 02.03.08 at 10:08 am.