Some people love waking up to a steaming hot cup of coffee — regardless of the temperature. Me? I like to switch to iced coffee when the days get longer and hotter. While there are certainly alternatives to brewing a hot cup of coffee and waiting for it to cool before pouring over ice, products like cold brew tend to come with a higher price tag than ground coffee and almost always require more effort than you want to put into early morning decisions. Which is why I’m currently obsessed with the HyperChiller.
This compact tool looks like a thermos, but inside there are three separate compartments. You fill two of them with water and then place the HyperChiller in the freezer. In the morning, after brewing a fresh pot or cup of coffee, you simply pour the hot brew straight into the top of the HyperChiller, which diverts it to the third compartment (situated between the two now filled with ice). After just 60 seconds, your coffee is cold enough to pour over ice or drink on its own. But either way, it won’t get watered down.
While making iced coffee is the draw, you can use the HyperChiller to chill a host of beverages, from white wine to tea to anything else you don’t want to risk diluting with melting ice. The best part? It’s just $24.
The HyperChiller is a simple tool to create the perfect cup of iced coffee or cold brew — without diluting it with melted ice. All you need is room in your freezer for this compact cup and 60 seconds of your time.
How I found the HyperChiller
As a Northeast resident for most of my life, I almost exclusively drink hot beverages in winter and cold in the summer. During colder months, I constantly have a mug of coffee or tea on my desk and that mug is replaced by a tall cup of iced coffee or a cold can of sparkling water in the summer. I love how refreshing iced coffee is, but I’m also very particular about it. I don’t much care for the flavor of coffee on its own, so my additions of cream and sweetener must be just so. But trying to make iced coffee from hot almost always muddles these flavors, making it a less-than-ideal drinking experience.
The HyperChiller makes these unsatisfying sips a thing of the past. If you have a single-cup coffee maker you can brew directly into the HyperChiller, or if you have a traditional coffee maker you can pour it straight in, taking care not to exceed the 12.5-ounce capacity. After 60 seconds, it takes coffee from brewing temperature, which is typically around 200 degrees Fahrenheit, all the way down to around room temperature, allowing the ice to do the rest of the work. But if you’re not in too much of a rush, you can leave your coffee in the HyperChiller for a few extra minutes, during which it will only continue to get colder until you may not even need ice at all.
In addition to its chilling power, one of my favorite things about the HyperChiller is how easy it is to use. Since the ice inside the pot never comes into contact with the beverage you pour in, you don’t need to empty it or change it with each use — you simply run water through the chilling compartment to rinse it out, then place the HyperChiller back in the freezer until you’re ready to use it again.
Why it’s a score
The HyperChiller can save you two of the most precious resources: money and time. An iced coffee or cold brew from a coffee shop will likely cost you somewhere around $4, while a 12-ounce bag of ground coffee that retails between $7 and $10 will make you roughly 20 cups of your favorite brew (especially when you don’t have to account for dilution). Meanwhile, you can forget about factoring that coffee shop stop into your morning commute. The same goes for setting up your cold brewer the night before or waking up early enough to brew your coffee and pop it in the fridge until it’s cool enough to pour over ice.
Plus, the HyperChiller doesn’t stop at coffee. Find the perfect bottle of white wine to go with your alfresco summer supper, but it’s not cold? A couple minutes in the HyperChiller will take it down to a perfect-for-sipping 45 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Love a cup of iced tea in the afternoon but don’t have the time or enough tea bags to make an entire pitcher? Brew one cup, pour it in the HyperChiller and drink a few minutes later. Since I’ve had it, I’ve even used the HyperChiller to chill a can of the aforementioned sparkling water when I realized I’d forgotten to put the cans in the fridge the night before.
Bottom line
There aren’t many things better than a cold iced coffee on a sticky summer morning, especially when that coffee is strong, flavored to perfection and not diluted by ice. The HyperChiller gives you the chance to make said cup of coffee at home, without the cost of a coffee shop cup or the time it takes to cold brew or wait for cooling. And at just $25 for endless iced coffee enjoyment, it’s hard to beat the price.
