It’s scorching outside and all you want to do is to lie down on your bed with a drink of your choice. Maybe something that quenches your thirst and also tantalises your taste buds. Why don’t you give the ol’ coffee a chance? While the hot version is popular, chilled coffee can be the perfect summer drink too. Here are some coffee-inspired recipes that you can whip up in a jiffy.

Japanese Iced Coffee

Ingredients: 4 tbsp (24 gm) ground coffee, 6-8 ice cubes, 250 ml water.
Method: Heat water to just before boiling point. Wet filter paper with hot water. Place the ice cubes inside the chemex filter. Place filter in the mouth of the coffee filter, add grounds into the filter paper. Pour 250 ml of hot water.

Note: Brewed coffee can be either  Japanese cold brew or slightly dilute French press brew (cooled) or South Indian decoction brewed with the ratio of 1 part powder to 12 parts of hot water (cooled).

Iced Coffee Lemonade

Ingredients: Juice of 1.5 lemons or limes, 4-5 tbsp sugar syrup (adjust according to taste), 320-330 ml brewed & cooled coffee, some ice.

Method: Split the lemon juice between two glasses. Add 2 tbsp of sugar syrup (cooled) in each glass. Fill 3/4th of the glass with ice cubes. Pour brewed coffee over the ice. Stir and enjoy!

Strawberry and meringue smoothie

Ingredients: 6-8 ice cubes, 100 gm or 2 scoops vanilla ice cream, 2 strawberries, 30 ml espresso, 35 gm whipped cream, 10 gm meringue.

For decoration: 3 gm meringue, 5 gm strawberry syrup.
Method: Prepare a short espresso. Pour the ice, which you can break into pieces first, directly into the mixer, along with the ice cream, fresh strawberries, and lastly, the espresso. Mix at high speed: the smoothie should be thick, and not liquid. To reach this consistency, stop the mixer every so often and stir the smoothie with a spoon to avoid lumps. Add the meringue and stir with a long spoon. Serve the smoothie in a tall tumbler, cover with whipped cream and decorate it with meringue and strawberry syrup.

Iced Mocha

Ingredients: 50 ml coffee, 50 ml cold chocolate, whipped cream, 6-7 ice cubes, 1 ltr milk, 175 gm sugar, 140 gm cocoa powder.

Method: Brew the coffee. Put the ice in a cocktail glass and pour over the chilled chocolate mixed with 50 ml of milk. Add the coffee and top up with whipped cream.

For hot chocolate: Bring one litre of milk to boil. Add the previously mixed cocoa powder and sugar. Reduce the heat. Leave it to reduce for 10 minutes or more, depending on the consistency desired. Leave to cool.
Courtesy: Lavazza and Tapaswini Purnesh, director marketing & promotions, Classic Coffees.