These buzzy cold brews from Auckland cafes each boast a point of difference.
Tāmaki Makaurau is awash with interesting, iced coffee options. A trend that reflects both summery seasonality and wider changes in consumer habits – one out of every five cups of coffee around the world is now drunk
Packaged coffee makers targeting the at-home market know this. Citing “Aotearoa New Zealand’s growing love of iced coffees”, Nespresso recently released capsule pods specifically designed for cold brewing. More locally, New Ground coffee has put serious research and development investment into producing canned cold coffee and boxed cold brews under its own brand and in collaboration with homegrown roasteries.
But a store-bought cup still holds a little luxurious appeal. Below, our pick of Auckland spots turning up the heat on cold coffee.
D.o.s.e
There’s a pleasingly light and fruity coffee to be enjoyed amid the dark and minimalist interiors of D.o.s.e, a narrow Japanese espresso bar tucked up the Shortland St end of High St. Signature beverages of the house (a blueberry and juniper coffee milk punch with tonic, and a strawberry cold brew served with a matcha float) are the go-to order for many, but I’m a fan of the comparatively austere cherry vanilla nitro. Served straight up over a large ice cube, the softly effervescent liquid offers a faintly creamy mouthfeel without relying on heavy dairy or its alternatives, which should appeal to black coffee drinkers. The name invokes sweet floral cues, those are there but any potential perfumery is cut by a clement bitterness and peppy fizz. Like all of Dose’s offerings it comes served alongside a teensy mini canele. – Tyson Beckett
We ordered: Cherry & vanilla nitro
Price: $9
Where to get it: 5 High St, Auckland Central.
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Slow Koi
During the hottest months of the year, this sleek cafe performs a great service; ushering patrons in from the baking heat to relax within monochromatic and minimalist black interiors. Located in The Strand Arcade on Queen St, Slow Koi is an endearingly nerdy coffee and tea spot inspired by Japanese tea culture. Details of the chosen roasts are signposted, guest baristas visit to showcase their talents and the counter is neatly lined with pour-over coffee makers. The highlight on the menu for summer is the ice nami black. It sees coffee poured over a generous stack of ice cubes with a dash of foamy milk topping. Despite the high ratio of black coffee, the roast is high quality enough to prevent too much acidity or bitterness. The main draw? This coffee is freezing cold – almost Antarctic. If you’ve been hiking the hills of Auckland’s inner city on an especially scorching day, take a break with this brew (or consider their verdant matcha options on a revisit). You’ll certainly feel cool and calm after 15 minutes of staring at the fish swishing in the koi tank. – Madeleine Crutchley
We ordered: Ice Nami Black
Price: $7
Where to get it: Strand Arcade, 227 Queen St, Auckland Central.
Coffee Central
Often, the middle of the day (or week) calls for a dependable cup, not something fussy. This is especially true in the summer heat, which can leave us extra cranky. In those situations, this hole-in-the-wall spot in Vulcan Lane has you covered. In our experience, its iced latte is just the right combination of quality, convenience and reliability. – TB
We ordered: Iced latte
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Where to get it: 4 Vulcan Lane, Auckland Central.
Rumours
Not far away from Coffee Central on O’Connell St is Rumours, our pick of spots to linger over your cold coffee. At this ambient specialist brew bar, owner Danny Lee pours care into each cup of coffee, passed to happy customers over a large central counter. – TB
We ordered: Iced white
Price: $7
Where to get it: 19 O’Connell St, Auckland Central.
Best Ugly Bagels
Though bagels are the name of the game at Best Ugly, this twist on an iced coffee has become an in-house signature. While it began as a specialty menu item – perhaps inspired by Al Brown’s time in Candian bagel joints – it is now a staple of the drinks menu. The amber iced maple is essentially an iced latte (heavy on the milk) with a drizzling of maple syrup. This addition is not solely sweet and supplies plenty of complexity; nuttiness, earthiness and toastiness. Best Ugly use beans from Good Joe Coffee Co, also under Brown’s hospitality umbrella. When the weather starts to turn at the end of the season this might be the coffee to ease into autumn festivities – delivering warming flavour in a cold cup. – MC
We ordered: Iced maple
Price: $7.50
Where to get it: City Works Depot, Commercial Bay, 3A York St, Newmarket.
Kompass Coffee
It’s like an urban planner’s dream come to life: Students, yo-pros and tourists sharing small communal tables and outdoor stools, drinking colourful, aesthetic beverages in park adjacent surroundings. But this isn’t a render – it’s Kitchener St. At the bottom of Albert Park, midway between the university and the hubbub of Lorne St eateries sits Kompass Coffee, a small, but humming cafe specialising in specialty pastries and a coffee menu that is equal parts inventive and aesthetic. Most of the offering, from strawberry or dirty matchas and einspänners to Japanese imported Hojicha, can be ordered hot or on ice. The communal vibe is something the busy team intentionally foster, regularly hosting pop-ups and collaborations with local bakers such as Zi Sweets and Fankery. “We’re not just serving coffee!” a caption on a recent Instagram post reads. “We’re giving you a space where you can relax either on your own or with friends.” – TB
We ordered: Dirty matcha
Price: $7.50
Where to get it: 2 Kitchener St, Auckland Central.
Cafe Ditto
The einspänner offerings at this exceptionally cosy Mount Eden coffee shop and creative studio are delicious (the iced einspänner features chilly coffee shots and a topping of cool whipped cream). The menu provides a choice between an original cream, matcha or chocolate topping for the iced black coffee base, making your coffee choice satisfyingly customisable. These coffees are certainly sweet, but would still suit an early morning setting. Cafe Ditto’s interiors are scored with lo-fi music and you’ll find your eyes drawn to a surrounding of vintage media artefacts – from a boxy television playing a marathon of cartoons to a film projector. As far as third places go, this will be among the sweetest spots to sip an einspänner in Tāmaki Makaurau. – MC
We ordered: Einspänner
Price: $8
Where to get it: 29A Mount Eden Rd, Grafton.
Mibo
As Madeleine Crutchley noted last year, crowds are drawn to Mibo’s bakeries for their “playful, seasonally-inspired pastries”, but the edible creativity extends on to the drinks menu which utilises Flight Coffee. On a recent lunchtime jaunt to their Wynyard Quarter store the Viva team dug into coffee jelly iced vanilla oat lattes – resembling a poorly poured pint of Guinness this dessert/coffee hybrid sees a glug of oat milk floated on top of a bed of lightly-set coffee jelly that you stir together until it resembles terrazzo. It’s a relatively mellow affair taste-wise – neither overly sweet nor heavily caffeinated, but a nicely tactile treat. – TB
We ordered: Coffee jelly iced vanilla oat latte
Price: $13.50
Where to get it: 30 Enfield St, Mt Eden, 155 Beaumont St, Wynyard Quarter.
Kōkako
Kōkako’s Commercial Bay coffee bar is decidedly swankier than the humble cart in Aotea Square that started it all, but 23 years in, the specialty coffee roaster is just as committed to its founding values which place socially and environmentally ethical brews at the heart of its offering. Specialty Fairtrade brews and seasonal experiments are often from single-origin producers and highlight unique flavour profiles. Perch at the intimate counter, made from over 8880 used 2L plastic milk bottles, alongside morning commuters or weekend shoppers and you’ll be rewarded with a dose of gentle coffee education alongside stellar people watching. – TB
We ordered: Iced latte
Price: $6
Where to get it: Kōkako Commercial Bay, 7/21 Queen St, Auckland Central.
Banh Mi Delicious
What makes this iced coffee so interesting? The excellence of the Vietnamese food truck it is served from. It is permanently parked up behind the mall in New Lynn and reliably serves fare from a short and sweet menu to new and loyal customers seven days a week. The Vietnamese iced coffee is delicious. It’s not overly stacked with ice or made so sweet that it’s missing the contrasting and slightly acidic bite of caffeine – though it does have that delightful syrupy texture that dips into the realm of dessert. The drink is best enjoyed with one of the savoury menu options. I have found the $13 vegetarian tofu banh mi, made with fresh bread and a generous filling of prickly pickled vegetables, an excellent pairing. – MC
We ordered: Vietnamese iced coffee
Price: $7
Where to get it: 4 Memorial Drive, New Lynn.
Bowler
Williams Eatery, which was run by brothers Charles and Patrick Williams for six years before closing in December 2024, was beloved for its strong coffees. Not surprising then, that the Coffee Suprem caffeine at their new venture – salad bar Bowler – has the same heft. The strength is especially fitting as one of the locations is on the ground floor of Les Mills Gym on Victoria St. Keeping with the fit-for-purpose theme – the option to add in protein and adaptogen powders into your brew. – TB
We ordered: Iced latte
Price: $6
Where to get it: 186 Victoria St West, Auckland Central, 85 Daldy St, Wynyard Quarter.
Juno Eatery
This aesthetically aware Milldale cafe serves all-day breakfast in a dining room drenched in pink. Both the food and drinks menu are served with a diner’s visual cravings in mind; options include a pink eggs benedict, cartoonishly plump pancakes and lolly-topped scrolls. Its iced coffees are no exception from this decorative drive. The coffee cold foam is an especially pretty option – it sees cold brew coffee finished with a thick layer of fluffy milk and crunchy coffee beans. It’s endlessly satisfying to watch the distinct foam layer melt into the brew below (think of this drink as a grown-up option for people who loved traffic light fizzy drinks in their childhoods). If you’re keen on other flavours, the cafe also serves chocolate, matcha and ‘peach Americano’ varieties. – MC
We ordered: Cold coffee foam
Price: $8
Where to get it: Unit 3/2 Henry Tayler Rise, Milldale.
Juno
On the ground floor of The Greenhouse, the striking green-tile apartment block at the Ponsonby Rd end of Williamson Ave you’ll find an entirely different Juno, a just-opened eatery from John Yip and Jamie Yeon, the duo who previously ran Dominion Rd’s favourite yakitori spot Omni.
Designed to be an all-day eatery (currently open for breakfast, brunch and lunch), early indications are that this sunrise-to-sunset spot won’t be plagued by the directionless pitfalls that often come when you try to do it all. A serene fit-out from Katie Lockhart is worth a trip in itself, but we’re pleased to report the tight and fresh menu is a thing of beauty in itself. Caffeine-wise, they’re making specialty coffees the focus, with Coffee Supreme on bean duty. The house signature is the Vienna – essentially an easier to pronounce einspänner – which sees an iced long black mixed with demerara sugar and orange peel syrup before being topped with sweet cold cream. Fingers crossed Juno follows the lead of Melbourne all-day eatery Good Measure and does a liquor-spiked version after dark. – TB
We ordered: The Vienna
Price: $11
Where to get it: 20 Williamson Ave, Grey Lynn.
Phin
Phin is a Vietnamese spot based in City Works Depot, which opened mid-last year. Founded by brother and sister Sam and Tira Doan, the eatery serves a brief menu, handing over banh mi and specialty coffees to inner-city crowds. The eatery is a light and bright stop for lunchtime meals, boasting an airy and quiet second storey. On the coffee menu, several iced varieties draw and expand on Hanoi’s coffee culture – think café kem muối (salted cheese coffee), brown sugar milk boba coffee and coconut coffee. The signature cà phê trứng, egg coffee, is certainly a highlight. It’s a blend of strong black coffee, condensed milk and a custard-like egg yolk mixture (topped with a sprinkling of ground coffee). The result is a sweet and hefty cup. Usually, I’d be put off by this much ice in a coffee, but the ratio is right here – it transforms the light and fluffy texture of the whip into something a little more velvety. – MC
We ordered: Cà phê trứng / egg coffee
Price: $13.90
Where to get it: 15/90 Wellesley St West, Auckland Central.
Folletto - ‘Made’ By A Robot
Tech sceptics can keep walking. At Folletto’s recently opened stores on Karangahape Rd and Rutland St in the central city your cup of joe will be whipped up not by an affable staff member, but by a robot. The droid on drip duty is more a mechanical arm, the type seen on telecommunication ads hyping how an interconnected world will allow surgeons in Zurich to operate on a patient in Chiang Mai.
Except instead of performing laparoscopies this bionic bicep moves a cup around a plastic cube to receive automated components that make your order, in our case: a chute of pebble ice, a squirt of vanilla syrup, a portion of milk and a dose of caffeine (they use beans from Takapuna roastery Bricks). The potential pricing efficiencies made possible by this type of automation haven’t been passed onto consumers – our iced vanilla latte cost $6.50. The robots get breaks too: the cafe (and in house selfie studio) opens at 10am each day, and stays open until at least 6pm, though they are teasing a shift to 24-hour operating hours is coming soon. – TB
We ordered: Vanilla iced latte
Price: $6.50
Where to get it: 27 Rutland St, Auckland Central.
Circle K
Want an automated caffeine for a fraction of the price, and aren’t fussed about quality? The large (think slushy serving size) iced coffees from convenience store Circle K cost $2.50. Fair warning – this won’t appeal to coffee connoisseurs – but there’s a certain cheap thrill in the novelty and value. Fill your boots with java from the self-serve machine, slap on the domed lid and tell yourself you’re in a Japanese Konbini. – TB
We ordered: Iced coffee
Price: $2.50
Where to get it: 36 Courthouse Lane, Auckland Central.
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