Point/Counterpoint: Iced coffee versus hot coffee

Ah, the age-old question: do you like your coffee hot, or cold? Maybe you like a little bit of both. If you’re stuck on your decision, take a look at our writers’ reasoning for being an advocate for one or the other.

Iced coffee:

Iced coffee is by far the superior drink to its stale, bitter sister.  

Speaking as someone who may or may not have a caffeine addiction (I’d be willing to bet that if you’re reading this you do too), iced coffee is far more drinkable. Drinking iced coffee feels refreshing compared to hot coffee, which feels like a chore. You don’t have to wait an absurd amount of time before it’s okay to drink, because it won’t burn your mouth and make everything taste bad for the rest of the week. Iced coffee won’t do you dirty like that. 

It’s also better for you. Iced coffee, particularly cold brew, is less acidic than hot coffee. 67 per cent less, in fact, which makes it better for your stomach and teeth. The acidity in coffee is what makes it bitter, so by having less, iced coffee is both healthier and more flavourful. Guy Fieri would be proud. 

Some may say that hot coffee is traditional, and therefore legitimate, but this notion is just elitism at its finest. One can appreciate where hot coffee has gotten us, but iced coffee is new, hip, and innovative. Hot coffee is the drink of choice for surly boomers. Iced coffee has generation Z on its side. Iced coffee is the future.

Don’t settle for overrated bitter bean juice just for the sake of “tradition”. Hot coffee didn’t pass the torch to iced coffee; iced coffee snatched it and ran. Longer, further, and faster than hot coffee could ever dream of going. Want to be a part of this tasty, refreshing movement? Drink iced coffee.

— Bree Meiklejohn

Hot Coffee:

I’d like to preface this article by noting that I am a very compromising man. I will meet you in the middle on tax legislation, foreign policy, and social policies. I understand that compromise is required to move society forward, but there are some fundamental truths that are so inalienable that I cannot compromise them without devaluing my honour. And one of those truths is that hot coffee is a superior beverage, and iced coffee is the fuel of Satan.

Hot coffee is the best beverage, not only compared to ice coffee, but to all beverages. Hot coffee has the advantage in flavour, function, and practicality in a manner that is unrivalled. The greatest scotch in the world is economically impractical. The purest water lacks flavour. But hot coffee has firmly established itself as a staple of everyday life across the globe.

Coffee has served to keep people awake, functioning, and working for generations. The midnight oil ought to be referred to as the midnight coffee, as coffee is the true fuel that burns steadily when you need to pull that fateful all-nighter. The slow burn that drives you through the day and night comes from the fire of coffee, not its chill.

Certain people choose to massacre this masterpiece of human ingenuity. Some individuals believe that they are greater than coffee, that they can control what coffee is. This transgression against nature comes in the form of the disgraceful iced coffee. Iced coffee takes the fire, the very essence of what coffee is, and removes it. Iced coffee removes the comforting burn of hot coffee, and replaces it with an icy grip that chills the very bones, dilutes flavour to a mockery of what it once was, and removes all semblance of practicality. To put ice in coffee is suck the soul out of it and leave it devoid of purpose.

Ice can be a cool relief in many other circumstances. Inflamed joints, fruit bowls, and iced cream all use ice beautifully. But to add ice to coffee is to strip it of its dignity.

Act with respect and virtue. Only drink coffee hot.

— Sam Hughes