Coffee is, for many of us college students, similar to life support. A long day is often impossible without slurping down a certain amount of the bitter drink. For some, this amount is a healthy one or two cups in the morning before class and for others, this translates to gallons of coffee. I’m not here to judge, as I fall closer to the second category than the first. Rather, I am here to settle a debate that seems to have no end. While many categories and subcategories have popped up, the largest distinction and the one I will focus on is the most polarizing: iced versus hot.
Hot Coffee: In defense of hot coffee, I will offer the following: it dominates the caffeine field with most espresso drinks (excluding the staple of the suburban elites, the caramel macchiato). Cappuccinos and lattes are offered in iced form, but they exist like your younger sibling trying to be just like you; many traits are similar, but the original will always have a slight edge over the copycat. Macchiatos are an insightful intersection where instagrammers and millennials have usurped the traditional beverage hierarchy in favor of trendiness with such vigor that the iced counterpart has risen to undeniable prominence. Another area hot coffee excels in is the relaxation factor.
Hot coffee drinks are the exclusive beverages of the morning paper routine, which is no small feat. The image of a man in a mid-life crisis or a struggling young professional woman sitting at their respective kitchen tables on a Sunday morning as dew slowly cascades down the window and the morning sunlight fills the empty house with a kind glow is a powerful one. If you look closer, you typically see a mug, maybe with a couple of stains and the faded orange and blue of the person’s alma mater. Inside that mug is inevitably the relaxing, warm brown liquid we all know and love. Never in this mug would you find the diluting influence of cubed water, sapping the beverage of its restorative powers and its agreeable taste.
Iced Coffee: Hot coffee has many upsides. However, it falls short of dethroning the reigning iced champion. The chic nature of iced coffee, honestly, is responsible for its actual popularity. Other than climate concerns, which are especially prevalent in the nearly tropical atmosphere of Gainesville, the reason for the massive popularity of iced coffee is the social value of the drink. It is more fashionable to have a clear cup and green straw than to sport a cardboard cup and lid. It is more Instagram-able and more aesthetic to the eyes of your Snapchat story. It is no far stretch to see why iced coffee is the drink of millennials. The drink is for hustlers and grinders across the industrialized world. The caffeine hits you just the same, yet the social perception is not one of relaxation but of intense work ethic and ambition. If you were to imagine a TA sprinting on a Summer B afternoon from her car parked in the Norman Hall Parking Garage to Turlington, in order to make it to her Good Life section on time, the coffee spilling with each of her strides would be iced, not hot.
While relaxation is important, it is simply not as valuable in our entrepreneurial age. If you want to be taken seriously iced coffee is the way to go. Both hot and iced coffee are delicious and both have important functions. That said, iced is certainly superior. You can fight this, sipping on hot coffee in our swamp’s sweltering summers like a madman, or you can join the collective opinion of our generation and drink iced coffee when you are studying, like a civilized person.
Kyle Cunningham is a UF English freshman. His column appears on Mondays.
