Coffee creamer is bizarre. It makes everything you add it to taste sweet, oily and industrial yet it’s so popular in some cultures that it’s considered a no-brainer.
Well, there are over 5 billion lactose intolerant people out there. Coffee creamers do typically include a very small amount of milk derivative, but it’s not enough to make a difference if you don’t have a dairy allergy.
It tends to be geographic, so if you live in a region that’s able to deal with lactose, you’d have the impression lactose intolerance isn’t super common. But entire regions are lactose intolerant, like Southeast Asia (including China) and about half of India.
Basically anytime you see dairy as rare or non-existent in a region’s traditional cuisine, that’s why.
I think a good approach is to only use it as a light sweetener, I only pour about 5g-10g of creamer into my lattes. Coffee mate’s Hazelnut creamer is the only flavour I tolerate, the rest taste too synthetic.
It’s been said but heavy cream is a great alternaive, I use about one tablespoon per mug. Sometimes I add a tiny bit of vanilla extract and a small amount of powdered sugar to the cream and whip it with an electric frother.
A dairy free alternative is oat milk, the thicker store bought ones are great, but I usually make my own. Just blend a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of oats to 2 cups of water in a blender for 30 seconds and strain through coffee filters or some salvaged fabric from an old shirt. It can be heated and frothed, then poured over the top of your coffee for a nice foam.
To be honest though, usually if I’m not feeling like straight black coffee I just add 1/2 tbs of brown sugar and that’s more than enough for me.
Coffee creamer is bizarre. It makes everything you add it to taste sweet, oily and industrial yet it’s so popular in some cultures that it’s considered a no-brainer.
Sweet and oily is like 2/3 of an american’s diet
How dare you. We also like salty and “cheese”.
call it what u want, i want it coursing through my veins
For anyone wondering about transatlantic definitions: US Heavy Cream is 38%, UK Double Cream 48% US “Half and half” is 12%, UK Single Cream 18%
They can basically be used interchangeably.
Milk is also basically the same, UK Semi-skimmed is 1.7%, so (obviously) closer to 2%.
Good coffee is good black
I discovered creamer recently, I honestly don’t get it. It tastes awful and why not use actual cream or milk in coffee than this thing ?
Creamer is shelf stable.
So is milk powder and sugar.
Remaking cream from milk powder isn’t much better than creamer.
Well, there are over 5 billion lactose intolerant people out there. Coffee creamers do typically include a very small amount of milk derivative, but it’s not enough to make a difference if you don’t have a dairy allergy.
Five billion? So the majority of people are lactose intolerant?
Almost all adults develop some level of lactose intolerance as they age.
Yes. 60-70% are the estimate ranges I’ve seen.
Wow, I didn’t think it was that widespread.
It tends to be geographic, so if you live in a region that’s able to deal with lactose, you’d have the impression lactose intolerance isn’t super common. But entire regions are lactose intolerant, like Southeast Asia (including China) and about half of India.
Basically anytime you see dairy as rare or non-existent in a region’s traditional cuisine, that’s why.
I think a good approach is to only use it as a light sweetener, I only pour about 5g-10g of creamer into my lattes. Coffee mate’s Hazelnut creamer is the only flavour I tolerate, the rest taste too synthetic.
I use plain creamer and it sweetens it up a bit but the bigger thing to me is it thickens it up ever so slightly giving it a much better mouth feel.
whats an alternative that we should be using instead?
It’s been said but heavy cream is a great alternaive, I use about one tablespoon per mug. Sometimes I add a tiny bit of vanilla extract and a small amount of powdered sugar to the cream and whip it with an electric frother.
A dairy free alternative is oat milk, the thicker store bought ones are great, but I usually make my own. Just blend a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of oats to 2 cups of water in a blender for 30 seconds and strain through coffee filters or some salvaged fabric from an old shirt. It can be heated and frothed, then poured over the top of your coffee for a nice foam.
To be honest though, usually if I’m not feeling like straight black coffee I just add 1/2 tbs of brown sugar and that’s more than enough for me.
Milk
Heavy cream / whipping cream works great