ICED coffees and teas should be some of summer’s simplest pleasures, especially when we just steep them in cold tap water, with no kitchen heat and next to no effort. But if you make even a desultory search for advice on cold brewing, you may find yourself mopping your brow deciding how, and even whether, to proceed.

Ratios of tea or coffee to water differ wildly from recipe to recipe; brewing times can be minutes or hours. And while some respected coffee authorities praise the virtues of cold-brewed coffee, others say it’s just not as good as brewing a fresh hot cup right onto the ice.

I’ve found it calming to take a leaf from China and Japan, where one batch of tea is briefly infused as many as seven or eight times and each infusion enjoyed for its particular qualities. Variety can be just as pleasing as consistency, and it can be a way to discover new sides of our most familiar ingredients.

When we brew coffee or tea, we’re doing a very basic thing: bringing plain water into contact with dried plant materials to imbue the water with flavor, color and various active substances, like caffeine and antioxidant polyphenols. It is a basic process, but not a simple one.