The Best Functional Coffee Add-Ins
First the influencers and manosphere loons added protein to ice cream, and I did not care because I rarely eat ice cream. Then they added it to popcorn, and I did not care because I rarely eat popcorn. Now they’re adding it to coffee creamer, and I am forced to care because I am hopelessly addicted to coffee, caffeine, and anything even remotely gimmicky in this space.
Memes aside, protein feels is everywhere these days. The usual suspects blame it on the rise of wellness culture, the rightward lurch of America’s political gestalt, and the noxious fumes emitted by the sputtering late-stage capitalist machine we’re all strapped into, whether we like it or not. The proverbial ship is sinking. You might as well get jacked and do your part to keep the economy whirring while you can.
Protein is not the only thing intrepid Shopify-powered wellness brands are encouraging you to add to coffee, but it’s certainly the most high-profile and zeitgeist-y adjunct to pour into your daily brew. Mushroom extracts, nootropics, amino acids, collagen, and a bevy of other chemical compounds purported to make your brain fire on all cylinders are all fair game here, which means the possibilities in this space are nearly endless. Coffee may be the final frontier of protein creep, and we are absolutely here for it.
To get a lay of the land, I rigorously tested eight readily available functional coffee add-ins to determine which are legit and which are losers. I spent a week with each, adding the dosage detailed in the serving size section of the nutrition facts panel to an 8-ounce cup of coffee. A few explicitly instructed us to add the dose to a larger cup of liquid, in which case we upped the amount of coffee used as a base. The coffee I used was a single-origin Guatemalan bean roasted by Atlas Coffee Club. It was brewed in a Fellow Aiden on the light roast Guided Brew setting in 5-cup batches.
Be sure to check out our other coffee coverage, including the Best Drip Coffee Makers, the Best Coffee Subscriptions, the Best Coffee Concentrates, and the Best Gifts for Coffee Lovers.
Best Add-In for Boozehounds
If your Instagram algorithm is anything like mine you’ve probably seen targeted ads for Javvy’s Protein Creamer, which has mysteriously replaced the Collagen Creamer on almost every corner of the internet. The bag says it contains 10 grams of protein, yet it also says that said protein is 0% of your daily nutritional allotment. To further compound the Mandela effect surrounding this purchase, Amazon replaced the former with the latter in my order history. I can tell you with utmost certainty that I tried the Collagen Creamer, and I wholeheartedly endorse it even if it ends up being some Tyler Durden-esque figment of my imagination.
A 22-gram dose of this vibrant white powder will feel like a lot in an 8-ounce coffee, but it dissolves seamlessly and adds a tinge of vanilla aroma to the cup. The sweetness that buzzes around the aftertaste arrives via Purified Acacia Hyrdolysate, aka Sukre®, which is a nice substitute for the uncanny sugary tang of stevia that’s so popular in bougie beverages and supplements these days. The mouthfeel is gentle and creamy, with a nice halo of froth atop the cup. This is not something my body could handle on a daily basis now that the excellent brewing skills of the Fellow Aiden have effectively weaned me off coffee creamer, but it’s a nice treat when you’re hungover or stuck with a subpar coffee situation.
Though collagen is at the front and center of this product, I can’t present any empirical evidence that it did anything to undo the harm of two-plus decades of alcohol consumption, plus a decade in the dreary Pacific Northwest. The argument regarding the quantifiable benefits of collagen seems unsettled as of yet, though my skin did feel much less irritated than usual after a weekend of eating, drinking, and couchlock around the Thanksgiving holiday, so I’ll take that as a win nonetheless.
Calories 100 per 22g dose Key ingredients 11 g of collagen, MCTs, prebiotics, 10 g protein Allergens Dairy Best for Bulking/Meal Replacement
Laird Superfood takes its name from cofounder Laird Hamilton, an infamously aggro big-wave surfer who’s best known for being Kevin Costner’s stunt double in the 1995 clunker Waterworld. Hamilton and sand volleyball superstar Gabrielle Reece, his wife, founded Laird Superfood in 2015 with the mission of helping the wellness-curious “take something [they] do every day and make it better.” I don’t drink protein powder every day, but I do drink enough coffee to drift into space quite often and fantasize about what my life would be like if I had the cojones to get towed by a jet ski into a 50-foot wave in Tahiti and hope for the best, like Hamilton did in 2000.
Adding dairy-based protein to acidic light-roast coffee can be a chunky affair, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that the rib-sticking dose of protein (12 g) and saturated fat (10 g) that highlights this chunky tan powder is 100 percent vegan and derived from pumpkins, hemp, and peas. The dehydrated coconut milk does most of the heavy lifting as far as flavor and aroma is concerned, so if your palate is not ready for the hefty whiff of tropical sweetness that emanates from the bag, then you may want to look elsewhere.
Coconut aversions notwithstanding, this magical dust is a great pick for anyone who wants to add a little more oomph to their morning brew, whether that be some extra protein for gains, or an extra hit of nutrients and satiety that might ward off a prelunch snack attack here and there.
Calories 200 per 39-g serving in a 12-oz cup of coffee Key ingredients Pea protein, pumpkin seed protein, hemp protein, lion’s mane, cordyceps, chaga, maitake Allergens Coconut
Best Entry-Level Option
Rather than overwhelm the senses with a menagerie of bold flavors and pumped-up protein, Earth Fed Muscle plays it safe with a mellow, understated creamer that’s just what you want and nothing more. The key selling points on Morning Charge’s package are 4 grams of collagen and 500 milligrams of lion’s mane extract per serving, plus a light dusting of protein (4 grams per dose) that rounds it off quite nicely without filling you up like an in-your-face protein creamer. An extensive list of amino acids is listed, highlighted by 880 milligrams of glycine and 408 milligrams of hydroxyproline.
Both the “cream” and the sweetness in Morning Charge come from coconut milk and sugar, respectively, which is appreciated if you’re put off by sugar substitutes like Stevia and Sucralose. A light tinge of coconut sweetness hits the front of the palate, and a warm finish of bittersweet chocolate and the faintest hint of savory mushroom notes complement the swallow. The texture is smooth and unobtrusive, letting the quality of your coffee (or lack thereof) poke through the flavor profile. This is a solid everyday sipper that’s built for comfort first and performance second.
Calories 80 per 17-g serving Key ingredients Collagen, lion’s mane, amino acids Allergens Coconut Best Add-In for People Who Hate Sugar
Since becoming a barista at the age of 24, my coffee journey has been a long, winding path with quirky creamers and add-ins at every turn. It wasn’t until about a year ago that I started drinking the coffee I brew at home every morning black, and in the time since I’ve been reducing my flavored creamer intake purely because my palate is no longer attuned to a daily blast of sugar. Until trying Everyday Dose’s riff on collagen creamer, I just assumed every product in this space was sweetened in one way or another. I personally don’t find this bothersome, but the common use of things like monk fruit and stevia to mask the off notes of everything else in the stack could be annoying for hardcore health nuts who find all sweeteners to be excessive or downright evil. Whether you hate sweetness or can’t have it for health reasons, I’m pleased to tell you that Everyday Dose Creamer+ is the add-in for you.
Billed as a “probiotic powerhouse,” the Creamer+ blend from Everyday Dose is a pleasant surprise when it comes to doing more with less. You can focus hard and pick up earthy flavors under a very light dusting of coconut sweetness, but the overall flavor at the end of the sip defers to the notes of your coffee rather than this smooth white dust that’s accented with small brown flecks. By the end of my week with this one, my gut felt extra fortified against the regular barrage of rich, bowel-wrenching foods I dump into it on a daily basis. I won’t go into any further detail on this matter, so you’ll need to take my word for it when I say the shiny bags' claims about digestive health may actually be true.
Calories 50 per 12-g dose Key ingredients Collagen, chicory root powder, DE111 probiotic Allergens Coconut, bovine collagen
Best for Hippies
Rasa is a purveyor of coffee alternatives that occupy the aesthetic halfway point between old-money Bay Area hippies and their minimalist millennial offspring. The packaging balances schwilly Deadhead charm with modern flourishes and colors, and their products err on the side of cautious intent rather than psychedelic maximalism. A small dose of mushrooms and ginseng provide the boost in this modest creamer, which offers a mere whisper of coconut flavor that barely registers on the sweetness scale. When mixed with a good light-roast coffee with low acidity, the end product is a cozy cup of nutty goodness that subtly reminds you it’s here to expand your mind ever so slightly. Pair this with some avocado toast and the latest Khruangbin album and you’re in for a pleasantly mild morning.
Calories 30 per 8-g dose Key ingredients Tremella mushrooms, ginseng, MCT oil Allergens Coconut Best Overall
Elder millennials like myself have an endless supply of warm and fuzzy memories of the second Obama era. Rent was cheap, music was hopeful, restaurant burgers included fries at no extra cost, and the self-help and wellness space was mostly benevolent and uplifting. The Bulletproof brand harkens back to this era when characters like Tim Ferris and Mark Manson were encouraging young adults to outsource rote tasks and ditch toxic relationships, and the general notion of improving yourself wasn’t automatically hitched to a specific pole of the political spectrum. A lot has changed for the worse since then, but Bulletproof has quietly gotten better. What started as a quirky DIY trend that pissed off baristas and caused overwhelming GI distress is now a stately brand that predates the ecosystem of fly-by-night snake oil merchants in this space by at least a decade.
The days of finding your own grass-fed beef and MCT oil to add to your coffee are over if you want them to be, thanks to Bulletproof’s ever-expanding catalog of add-ins that are accessible, palatable, and easy to blend. I’m a sucker for holiday creamers, so I was delighted to learn they carry limited-edition seasonal flavors like pumpkin spice and—my personal favorite—peppermint mocha. This rich brown powder packs a generous dose of smooth mocha flavor with just a light tickle of peppermint and stevia sweetness on the finish. The combo of butter and coconut-derived MCT oil punches up your cup with a rich mouthfeel that makes its presence known but doesn’t linger too long. My only knock on the creamer is that it all but envelops the flavors of your beans, which may be a good thing if you’re using this product to mask the off notes of cheap coffee you’d rather not taste in the first place.
As far as Bulletproof’s signature metabolic and cognitive boost goes, I can say with confidence that I missed the brain buzz facilitated by this creamer when my week with it was over. It didn’t do much to help me organize my thoughts and tasks while it slowly took hold of my brain, but I was able to harness it quite well by creating a to-do list in advance of consumption, which I then crushed with abandon after a cup of pepperminty goodness was sloshing around my innards. On that topic, I’m pleased to report that the days of Bulletproof Coffee racing straight through your bowels may be over for most normal people, assuming you stick with the dosage guidelines and avoid taking a 2-pound breakfast burrito to the dome before adding this to your coffee. This isn’t the perfect product—stevia is not for everyone, and the silty residue it leaves in the bottom of your cup makes your final sip or two pretty gross—but it’s noticeably better in both taste and function than everything else I tried in this experiment.
Calories 110 per 15-g dose Key ingredients Grass-fed butter, MCT oil Allergens Milk
Not Recommended
Four Sigmatic Think Vanilla Coconut Creamer for $15: Four Sigmatic carries a staggering variety of boosted coffee and coffee-adjacent elixirs, so there’s a nonzero probability of finding a clunker or two in what may well be a portfolio of otherwise fine products. The bonus brain tickle from the lion’s mane and L-theanine in their Think Organic Coffee creamer is not nothing, but the flavor put forth by this tiny dose–just 8 grams of powder recommended per cup of coffee–is not something I found myself excited to revisit in the week I spent testing this one. The vanilla and coconut notes are far less pronounced than other comparable products, with the monk fruit extract handling most of the heavy lifting within the flavor profile. If you’re on a keto diet and are already used to this style of sweetener, then this is a good fit for you, while anyone who prefers more normie sweeteners (or none at all) may want to avoid Think altogether.
Cymbiotika Nootropic Creamer in Coconut Vanilla for $30: During the pandemic, the Pittsburgh-based supplement and fitness store GNC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They closed over 1,000 stores in the process, and today they’re limping along with a patchwork of poorly stocked, barely open shops in strip malls and zombie malls across the country. In the end, they survived the pandemic, but a new challenger emerges: app-based clean-girl superstores run by businessmen-turned-wellness gurus. Cymbiotika fancies itself as a one-stop shop for wellness influencers and wannabes of all stripes. No matter what your malady or fitness goals may be, this San Diego–based company has a salve, balm, powder, or oil to help. Lines are clean, colors are muted, and the aesthetics are, uh, aesthetic. This is a fine business model if their products were good, but their nootropic creamer calls into question their stylish, minimalistic approach. It has very little flavor in its minuscule 5.2-gram dose, and what little flavor it does have is heavy on stevia. You could up the dose for efficacy, but you probably won’t want to after one cup of this astringent, uncanny powder. To add insult to injury, the strip that seals the mylar bag closed is tiny and comes preloaded with a thin coating of powdery gunk, making it impossible to close effectively after just one use. If I had a supplement “stack” that was lacking in alpha GPC or L-theanine, I suppose this is an acceptable vehicle for filling in those nutritional cracks, but the idea of continuing use of this as a stand-alone creamer replacement is more unappealing than spending a week at a wellness retreat in the desert led by a guy named Kaarsen who went viral on Tik Tok by explaining that vegetables are bad for you, actually.
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