What's the Best Substitute for Coffee Creamer? Which New Coffee "Companion" Do You Prefer?

Beyond taste, from a health perspective, "what are the best coffee companions?" is a topic that every coffee enthusiast cares about to some extent. In daily life, we can find sugar, fresh milk, brown sugar, coconut oil, cinnamon, cocoa, butter, honey, alcohol, lemon, etc., all of which have been added to coffee. Everyone might as well choose the most suitable "coffee companion" from among them.

When it comes to coffee companions, everyone has their own habits. Foods with mild flavors that are easy to obtain, such as sugar, milk, condensed milk, and cream, have always been people's first choices in daily life.

However, whenever people are asked whether coffee can be mixed with honey, whether it tastes good after adding it, whether there are any harms, and other questions, they immediately show a puzzled expression, then silently turn to search engines for answers, only to end up with a bunch of conflicting opinions. For a moment, they don't know whose advice to follow. FrontStreet Coffee is here today to specifically discuss honey, this controversial coffee companion~

Can You Add Honey to Coffee?

Actually, adding honey to coffee is a very ancient way of drinking it, with a history of several hundred years. For example, in FrontStreet Coffee's article "Vienna Coffee, It Seems to Have Changed!!!" the origin story of cappuccino features honey:

The timeline can be traced back to 1684, when the Polish man Kulczyki, after successfully relieving the Siege of Vienna, was rewarded with a generous bounty as well as large quantities of coffee beans left behind after the Turkish defeat. Therefore, after the war, he stayed in Vienna and opened a Blue Bottle Cafe. To cater to Austrian tastes, he thought of using a cloth bag to filter out the undrinkable powder residue from Turkish coffee, and added cream, honey, and spices to enrich the flavor. This way of drinking quickly became the favorite of Viennese people.

As a natural sweetener, honey has long been used to add sweetness and aroma to food. Modern research suggests that honey contains about 70% glucose and fructose, as well as proteins, inorganic salts, organic acids, and other substances. Therefore, it is not only nutritious but also has good therapeutic and auxiliary effects. So for the question of whether honey can be added to coffee, the answer is obviously yes.

How to Add Honey to Coffee for the Best Taste?

Compared with seasonings like sugar, besides sweetness, honey has its own unique aroma. It tastes refreshingly sweet and warm, and high-quality honey will also emit elegant floral fragrance. Therefore, when we use honey instead of sugar in coffee, we can not only increase sweetness, but if handled properly, it might even combine with coffee to create a completely new complex flavor profile.

FrontStreet Coffee learned from elders that the water temperature for brewing honey is also very particular, because temperatures that are too high will destroy heat-unstable nutrients in honey such as enzymes, vitamins, and polyphenols. Moreover, scalding temperatures will make honey sour, leading to poor taste. Currently, mainstream research believes that brewing honey with water below 60°C can avoid the loss of those heat-unstable nutritional components, with water temperatures of 40-55°C being optimal.

Black coffees like pour-over and hang-drip typically use hot water close to 90°C for brewing, and the coffee temperature when received usually falls between 65-75°C, or even higher. Therefore, to avoid producing bad flavors, we might as well wait for it to cool down slightly before adding an appropriate amount of our own honey according to taste.

For example, today FrontStreet Coffee let the brewed Brazil Queen Manor coffee sit at room temperature for 6-8 minutes before adding 2 small spoons of honey and stirring. After waiting for complete dissolution and tasting, the coffee was not scalding, while carrying a honey aroma and sweetness, very comfortable.

If you want to add honey to lattes/cappuccinos/flat whites, then we need to pay attention to the amount, because adding too little will easily be masked by the coffee flavor, while adding too much worries about making the milk coffee overly sweet. In this regard, after trying multiple parameters, FrontStreet Coffee discovered that controlling the ratio of honey to espresso at 1:2 works best, that is, 1 part honey to 2 parts espresso.

For example, FrontStreet Coffee here uses oat milk to make a cappuccino paired with honey. First, extract 40g of coffee liquid using 20g of Warm Sunshine coffee powder;

Then pour 180ml of oat milk and 20g of honey into the milk pitcher sequentially, and froth until fluffy, thick milk foam forms, controlling the temperature at 50-55°C, suitable for direct drinking;

Finally, combine the two, and the honey oat cappuccino is complete~

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473