What to Add to Freshly Ground Black Coffee to Make It Taste Better and Less Bitter - Adding Chili Sauce to Pure Coffee for a Delicious and Healthy Drink

The Rise of Coffee Additives: From Chili Sauce to Sweet Innovations

Young people today seem to enjoy adding ingredients to everything they drink. This April, a trend emerged online of adding chili sauce to coffee. At first, one might wonder: what kind of chili sauce? The type served with fish balls? Or perhaps Lao Gan Ma?

Upon further investigation, I discovered a chili sauce called "Ujjo" that had launched a crowdfunding campaign on the KICKSTARTER platform.

Surprisingly, the project successfully reached its funding goal on May 15th, leaving me quite astonished.

Looking deeper into the story, I found that the founder of Ujjo was challenged by a friend to add chili sauce to her coffee. As one might imagine, the result was less than pleasant. However, she took this experience seriously and realized that it wasn't the spiciness that was problematic, but rather the acetic acid and garlic flavors in the chili sauce that clashed with coffee. This led her to develop a special chili sauce for coffee - one without acetic acid or garlic, featuring only spiciness and a hint of sweetness (derived from a sweetener called xylitol).

She even created two different formulations based on coffee roast levels: one for light to medium roast beans, and another for dark roast coffee. According to the product information, this chili sauce isn't just for coffee - it can be added to tea, alcoholic beverages, and even ice cream.

Traditional vs. Innovative Coffee Culture

At this point, you might find this fascinating and want to try it yourself. While this approach seems innovative, for some traditional coffee connoisseurs, it might be considered an insult:

"This coffee is brewed from premium Esmeralda Geisha beans! I want to taste the diverse flavors imparted by its origin, not just add random ingredients!"

In most cases, adding ingredients to coffee serves to mask undesirable flavors. This is exactly what happens with Vietnamese drip coffee, where large amounts of condensed milk are added to balance the heavy bitterness of Robusta coffee beans.

The Evolution of Coffee Culture in China

Returning to China, before the third wave of coffee culture emerged, most Chinese coffee drinkers added milk and sugar to their black coffee. With the arrival of the specialty coffee boom, inspired by Starbucks' Frappuccinos and the rise of new-style tea beverages, an increasing number of innovative coffee drinks have appeared.

Today, the competition has intensified beyond just new-style teas - even coffee has entered this "rat race." In the tea sector, Nayuki introduced their霸气玉油柑 (dominant yu you gan), while HEYTEA launched their多肉黄皮仙露 (fleshy yellow skin immortal dew).

In the coffee world, Starbucks' nitrogen cold brew merely modified the texture. Some brands, aiming to mask coffee's natural flavors, seem to have learned the essence of Vietnamese drip coffee - sweetness! Others have shown remarkable ingenuity - simply changing the syrup flavor creates an entirely new beverage.

The Question of Coffee Innovation

However, there are truly innovative individuals who have put considerable thought into creating coffee-based drinks, incorporating widely accepted ingredients like fresh fruits and crunchy nuts. It's clear that their goal is to encourage more people to taste, understand, and even fall in love with coffee.

What troubles me, however, is whether this approach helps people appreciate pure coffee or merely the novel elements in coffee beverages. It seems that making more people genuinely love coffee remains a long and challenging journey.

So, what do you think? Is it necessary to add ingredients to coffee? Why?

Sources and Further Information

Image sources: UJJO, KICKSTARTER, Seesaw Coffee official Weibo, internet

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style).

For more specialty coffee beans, please add private WeChat FrontStreet Coffee, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473