Hack your Coffee
How to instantly make every cup of coffee taste 30% better
What if I could tell you that there is a 5-second, essentially free way to make every cup of coffee taste at least 30% better without costing you anything?
Surely that would be worth a read right ?
There are a lot of Java aficionados who go to unbelievable lengths to experience the best coffee from :
buying the right beans,
grinding to perfection,
making sure the brew water is the perfect temperature,
buying a fancy Italian espresso machine etc
But… just one simple trick can make gas station filter coffee taste almost as good as the best espresso
The number one hack: Salt your brew
OK, I know that sounds crazy, but keep reading - don’t give up on me!
Salt makes a LOT of food taste better, and it turns out that coffee is no exception. You can still add milk and sugar if you like, but just add a tiny bit of salt first
Adding a pinch of salt to your coffee significantly reduces perceived bitterness and enhances overall flavour profile, particularly in darker roasts or over-extracted brews.
The sodium ions in Salt bind to your taste buds' bitterness receptors, making the coffee taste less harsh and allowing other subtle flavours, like sweetness and acidity, to come forward.
Don’t over do it! If you put too much salt in your coffee, then of course it’s going to taste…. salty.
But just test this out: just try tasting your coffee before, and then add a TINY pinch, or half a pinch of salt, and you’ll be amazed at how much the flavour has improved.
Hack two: oils and fats
Unless you’ve tried hack one, don’t even bother with these hacks!
Just promise me you’ll try salting your coffee once in your life, and then came back here.
Additional ways to make coffee taste much better are oils and fats. That’s why so many people like milk and cream in their coffee. Oils and fats once again cut down bitterness and enhance flavour, but no-where near as well as salt does.
But….if you want the ultimate coffee, first add the tiny pinch of salt described above, and then experiment with also adding a small knob of butter or a teaspoonful of olive oil to your coffee before you add any milk to finish off.
Olive oil and butter will impart a silky, velvety texture to your coffee, similar to adding cream or milk, and so if you’re someone who is lactose intolerant or just likes long blacks, adding olive oil or butter will give you ALL of the flavour benefits and mouth feel of milk, without the milk.
Buy me a coffee?
Just kidding, you don’t have to. But please DO try salting your coffee just ONCE, and if it improves every coffee you have from now on by 30% as promised, then come back and leave a comment, or forward this article to your friends.
But… this article does seem like a good place to mention BuyMeACoffee.com which is a website that was set up to try and solve the problem of tipping on the Internet - where if you like what someone does and want to say thanks, there was often no easy way to just “buy them a coffee”.
If you’d like someone to “Buy you a Coffee” one day for your online work, consider signing up and adding the BMAC link to your own bio.
These days, Substack.com (where this blog is hosted) has largely solved the problem that BuyMeACoffee.com was trying to solve, by making it easy for people like me to earn some pocket money when people like what they do, and so to the handful of people on here who have a paid rumination’s subscription, many thanks.
And Substack has made it possible for many people such as Mountain Tui and David Farrier to not just get a few tips, but actually earn a living from their writing. In these days of A.I. it’s good to see that there is still value in real people doing real research and sharing real stories and experiences.