Whipping up quality cold-brew coffee is easy and delicious — and saves you money.

Once you taste really good cold brew, it’s very hard settling for ordinary iced coffee. Coffee shops and gourmet grocers are aware of cold brew’s charms, and they now charge a premium for it.

Unlike regular iced coffee, made from hot-brewed drip that’s then cooled and poured over ice, cold brew is made with room temperature or colder water from the start. You pour that water over a greater-than-normal quantity of coffee grounds, let it steep for 12 hours or more, and the result is a coffee drink that’s sweet, rich and velvety smooth, with no bitterness or acidity.

Cold brew should also be quite strong. Ideally, each batch uses double the coffee grounds called for to make a stiff pot of French press. But despite its potency, cold brew is remarkably easy to drink especially when cut with ice, water, milk or even a little simple syrup.

Frankly, it’s the perfect coffee companion during steamy summer months. The flavor of cold brew concentrate won’t degrade after sitting in melting ice either, a failing of conventional iced coffee.