We all love a little milk and sugar in our coffee to sweeten up our drinks, but have you tried honey in your coffee? If you haven’t I’m here to tell you it’s a great way to add sugar and a unique flavor to your coffee.
You may be wondering why and if you should add honey to coffee. It is actually a practice done by people around the world and it is absolutely delicious along with having a ton of health benefits. In this article, I will be going over all the pros and the few cons you will encounter when adding honey to your coffee.
Here are the top reasons why you should add honey to your coffee.
Why honey is better than sugar in coffee
Currently, honey versus sugar is one of the most debated topics in the coffee industry. Most individuals nowadays are more conscious about their health and this is one of the main reasons you may want to switch over to using honey instead of processed sugars.
Honey is healthier than sugar
While gram for gram honey has more calories than sugar there are some reasons why this won’t matter and you may actually have fewer calories when you use honey than when you use sugar. A teaspoon of honey has about 21 calories but white sugar has 12 calories with a single teaspoon.
However, Honey is higher in fructose which is sweeter than glucose which is what normal sugar is made out of. As a result, you will naturally use less honey than sugar.
There are also a ton of health benefits to eating honey. Sugar most of the time does not have any vitamins or minerals that are beneficial to the body unless you have a specialty sugar derived from fruits.
Honey on the other hand has trace amounts of some minerals and vitamins that can be good for your body. Most natural kinds of honey are rich in calcium and vitamin C.
It also contains antioxidants that are great for heart health and for some types of cancer.
Some other health benefits of honey are:
- Unpasturized honey has pollen that can help with allergic reactions. Especially if the honey is local and uses pollen from local flowers and plants
- Has antimicrobial properties that can help kill of germs
- Can suppress coughs and improve your sleep.
Many different types of honey that you can add to coffee
There are many types of honey that can potentially give you a ton of variety in your coffee. Because honey is a natural product made by bees, there are a ton of different types of honey that is naturally produced based on what is available to the bee at the time.
Bees collect nectar from flowers and bring it back to the hive to regurgitate it to create honey.
Raw Honey
Raw honey is honey that is extracted straight from a beehive and then stored in a jar. This is the most natural form of honey and it can sometimes even contain some of the honeycombs inside the honey. People think that this type of honey is the best for health because it is “pure”.
Raw honey usually does not go through any heat treatment or purification so it’s full of all the natural enzymes, antioxidants, antifungals, antibacterials, and antibiotics that bees naturally put in it. Raw manuka honey is also known for its health benefits, especially its antibiotic properties.
This manuka honey has been acknowledged by medical professionals to have medicinal effects such as killing MRSA microbes and other strains of pathogenic bacteria.
Raw honey is great in coffee because it adds a ton of great health benefits to the already amazing health benefits coffee has for you. If you’re interested in the health benefits of coffee you can read about the 18 benefits of black coffee here. Just remember that you should not give raw coffee to children younger than 1 year old because of the chance it may contain Clostridium botulinum which may cause botulism.
Pasteurized Honey
Pasteurized honey is the regular coffee you find in the grocery store that looks golden, clear, and smooth. This is because the pasteurization process clears up the honey and makes it look that golden color. It also increases the shelf-life of your honey and kills any yeast cell in the honey at the time.
This however reduces the number of antioxidants in your honey and nutrients in your honey.
One problem with pasteurized honey is that it can be spiked with cory syrup because it is cheaper and easier to manufacture. All honey is created the same, but once it’s touched by humans there can be other things added to the honey.
This kind of honey is best for someone who may not use honey very often but may sometimes want to put something sweet into their coffee. Pasteurized honey can last for an extremely long time and will have no problems being stored on a shelf.
Acacia honey, Alfalfa honey, Clover honey, and Fireweed honey (Light Honey)
Light honey like acacia is commonly more floral and lighter tasting than other types of honey. They are more neutral than dark honey which has a stronger flavor and can be added to more things.
Acacia and clover honey is a great pairing with coffee because of the floral scents and sweetness. One thing you should try is adding this to cardamom coffee. You can read an article about why you should add cardamom to coffee by clicking here, but in short, the floral tastes and scents from the cardamom coffee pair extremely well with the light honey flavor.
These lighter kinds of honey are usually a lot sweeter than other honey and will be the best choice if you want a straight replacement of sugar and other sweeteners.
Personally, I am a fan of adding acacia honey to my coffee with cardamom with a touch of cinnamon. It has a great floral flavor and the hint of cinnamon makes a perfect drink in my opinion.
Buckwheat honey, Chestnut honey, Manuka honey, and Avocado honey (Dark Honey)
Dark honey has a higher concentration of antioxidants and is usually darker than other types of honey. This is due to the amount of water that is in the honey.
These dark honey contain less water and more nectar. This causes them to taste more intensely and have stronger flavors. They are also darker due to the different flowers nectars that can produce lighter and darker honey throughout the seasons.
One thing to note is buckwheat honey isn’t as sweet as normal honey and can actually be a good pair with coffee. There is a malty taste that is rich and flavorful.
How to make amazing honey coffee
So now that you know why honey is so great and what pairings you should try with coffee here’s how to get started with adding honey to your coffee.
Manuka honey is magic.
Shawn Mendes
Required Ingredients:
- 2 cups of coffee
- 1/2 cup of whole milk
- 1/4 cup of honey
- 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon
To make honey coffee start by normally brewing 2 cups of coffee at your preferred strength.
Then combine your 1/2 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of honey and stir until it is thoroughly fixed.
Lastly, pour the milk into your coffee and sprinkle your ground cinnamon onto your coffee!
That’s it, now all you have to do is enjoy it!
Conclusion
I hope by reading this article you try adding honey to your coffee! You may not like the taste at first, but BEElieve me it grows on you.
Experiment with different kinds of honey and find your favorite and what kind of honey you like in your coffee. Thank you for reading!
