This is a very simple way to pre-prepare iced coffee for a hot summer morning or camping trips. Essentially, this makes sun tea, but with coffee. You will need a sun tea jar (at least one gallon size) and empty tea bags (designed for loose-leaf tea).

Empty tea bags are sometimes sold in places that also sell plenty varieties of loose leaf tea. As an alternative, you can use a small drawstring bag made from thin, natural fabric, as long as you can fully close it to keep the coffee grounds from escaping. Another alternative is to use “coffee singles” that come in single-serving bags like tea. If you’re at all particular about your brew, however, I recommend stuffing your own bags.

1/3 – 1/2 cup ground coffee

Optional:
1/3-ish cup cream, milk, or liquid creamer
Sugar or sweetener to taste

Put the coffee in the bags, then in the jar. Fill with hot water, leaving a little room at the top if you want to add creamer later. Set the jar outside in the sun, for at least 4-5 hours if not all day, and let it steep. If the outdoor temperature isn’t scorching hot, set a piece of aluminum foil shiny-side-up underneath the jar to reflect more sun inside. I like to set it out in the morning before work and do the rest after work.

When it looks dark enough, bring it back inside and remove the coffee bags. Add creamer and/or sweetener to taste. If using powdered creamer, it will mix better if you stir it with a whisk. Set it in the refrigerator to cool overnight.

In the morning, enjoy a nice, cool glass of iced coffee (with or without actual ice cubes). This can also be poured into an easy-to-clean water bottle and stuffed into a bag before going to work.

For Camping: Save up a few plastic bottles from water, juice, soda, etc. Pour the sun coffee into the bottles and freeze. Then, when you’re packing your cooler, the bottles double as ice packs and you can save yourself the trouble of buying ice for the first day or so, depending on the amount of space the frozen bottles fill in your cooler. They also stay semi-frozen for a couple of days. But whatever you do, DON’T use glass bottles! It only takes one glass bottle shattering in your freezer and leaving a sticky mess to learn this lesson the hard way.