Should You Mix Coffee With Turmeric
In recent years, turmeric has been propelled into mainstream media in the form of shots, milk, and many fadish items, but should you mix it with coffee or not?
One of the most popular turmeric combinations is coffee with turmeric, so here is everything you need to know about turmeric and coffee.
What Is Turmeric?
Turmeric is a spice made from the root of a flowering plant. Scientifically named Curcuma Longa, the plant is a distant relative of ginger, and contains similar looking tuberous roots that are powdered, blended, or boiled into different forms of the turmeric spice. The resulting spice is a pungent, warm, and slightly bitter flavor that is often used in South Asian and Middle Eastern cooking.
The spice gets its bright color from curcumin, a major component of turmeric.
Although turmeric has become widely popular in Western diets, the spice originally comes from India, where its history goes back nearly 4000 years. It has long been used as a culinary spice, and it also has a long history in traditional systems like Ayurveda, an ancient Indian medicine system that still exists today.
By 700 AD, turmeric spread to China, and the spice eventually made its way across the globe, existing under different names in every culture.
When and Why Did Coffee and Turmeric Become Trend?
A few years ago came the turmeric trend, a viral food movement that started with the turmeric latté. The turmeric latté is a drink made from steamed milk, turmeric, and some sort of sweetener. Popular cafes carry turmeric lattes that often contain additional spices such as ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, and black pepper. The drink is a hybrid of Chai, and has grown in popularity because of its said health benefits.
As turmeric lattés became more popular, cafes also began serving turmeric coffee, to combine the trendy spice with an everyday beverage that people could enjoy. Along with regular coffee and turmeric, coffee was also added to the turmeric latté to create a caffeinated version of the drink.
Turmeric lattés are now popular beverages that are carried by many coffee chains and small coffee shops. Retailers have even begun selling turmeric coffee items such as turmeric creamer, turmeric coffee powder, and more.
How to Combine Turmeric and Coffee
The most popular way of combining turmeric with coffee is through a turmeric latté. The multidimensional drink is the perfect way to combine turmeric with coffee, since the additional spices and textures take away from the strong turmeric flavor which can be bitter in excess. Since a large amount of turmeric is added to the drink, the addition of ginger, cardamom, and pepper balance out the turmeric taste, creating an elevated spiced latté.
Although this is the most popular form, turmeric is also used as an additive in regular, brewed coffee. The trend of turmeric in coffee has exceeded commercial coffee shops, and people have begun adding turmeric powder into their daily coffee, as well as requesting it in coffee shops.
Another popular way to add turmeric to coffee is by combining it with coffee grounds and brewing the mixture with hot water. This results in a gentle but flavorful turmeric coffee with less intensity.
Taste: Coffee and Turmeric
Turmeric is known for its warm, peppery, gingery, but also slightly bitter taste. It is often used in savory foods and Asian curries, so the combination of turmeric and coffee might not seem very cohesive. However, it has proven to be a very popular and tasteful combination that many enjoy.
Turmeric lattés are often spiced with a variety of potent spices, so the resulting drink is an orchestra of sweet, spice, ginger, pepper, and more. In this setting, the vibrant and exquisite flavor of turmeric fits right in and creates an even bolder spiced ginger flavor. The slight bitterness of turmeric also pairs well with the frothy milk in a latté, creating a tangible contrast between the light and creamy milk and the sharp and woody turmeric. These flavors and textures all work together to create a uniquely flavored latté which cannot be replicated without the key ingredient: turmeric.
Contrarily, turmeric mixed with regular coffee, whether it be black coffee or coffee with milk, has a completely different effect. This kind of drink generally contains much less turmeric, since the flavor can get overpowering. A small amount of turmeric mixed in coffee, or brewed with the coffee, creates a gentle, warming flavor, but too much turmeric can add to the natural bitterness of coffee and overpower the drink.
Coffee and Turmeric: What About the Health Buzz?
A lot of turmeric’s popularity comes from its reputation as a wellness ingredient, and you’ll see plenty of bold claims about it online. The research is still limited, though. The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health says we don’t know enough to definitively conclude whether turmeric or curcumin is beneficial for any health purpose.
We’re coffee people, not doctors, so we enjoy turmeric coffee for its warm, spiced flavor. If you’re thinking about taking turmeric or curcumin as a supplement, talk to your doctor first.
What Other Drinks are Made With Turmeric?
Aside from coffees and lattés, turmeric is also a popular additive for an assortment of other drinks, including teas, wellness “shots,” spiced milk drinks, smoothies, and more.
Turmeric tea, a mildly flavored yellow tea, is carried by many popular tea brands and cafes. Turmeric wellness shots, concentrated shots of turmeric and other ingredients, have become a fixture at juice bars and grocery stores. Turmeric milk, also called Golden milk, is a sweet and spiced drink that is often made with a milk substitute. It is also sold in many health food stores and farmers’ markets.
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This article is for general information only and isn't medical or nutritional advice. If you have questions about caffeine, your diet or a health condition, talk to your doctor.
