Ever since coffee shops have roared into mass popularity, smart coffee entrepreneurs have been coming up with all sorts of innovations aimed at making that good fashioned cup of coffee a completely new phenomenon.

And as soaring summer temperatures send coffee drinkers seeking icy refreshment the new wave of coffee innovators have been promoting a "Cold Brewed" process which involves gravity and a lot more time than anyone should have to spend making coffee.

So at OLD CITY COFFEE (OCC), the challenge of making a great high-octane iced brew resulted in a low-tech solution which customers and the "Life's Too Short" oriented management really appreciates.

"Well ... let's put it this way," says owner and founder of OCC Ruth Isaac when asked about "Cold Brewed" coffee. "This summer our iced coffee will be brewed and it will be cold. But we don't take hours to make it because that doesn't actually make the coffee any better."

The OCC "Shock Chilled" process is brilliant in its simplicity, as the daily house regular is brewed double strength and then poured immediately over ice and then directly into the self-service dispenser. And the process is repeated several times a day -- well before the previous batch is depleted -- to assure freshness.

According to OCC "technical analyst" Jack Treatman, "Hot brew extraction is still the most efficient process and produces the most flavorful coffee."

Once again OCC takes the position that when it comes to coffee, very often innovation does not mean surrendering traditional values. At the same time, it should be noted that OCC began offering UTZ certified single cup brewing coffee pods in the past year, which are enormously popular, and were considered hugely progressive for the 32 year bastion of sustainably sourced small batch coffee roasting.