Why salt might be the missing ingredient in your morning coffee
Almost 75 per cent of Australian adults drink coffee. Image: Getty
Source : Body and Soul | Author : Katy Hall
While most of us assume adding sugar to bad coffee will improve the taste of our daily brew, research has found that salt is actually a better flavour enhancer.
If you, like me, struggle to start the day without a strong cup of coffee, you’ll know the profound disappointment that comes from taking that first sip of your go-to order and suddenly finding yourself with a mouthful of bitterness that tastes disgusting.
And so the battle of wanting to avoid ingesting disgusting liquid versus the need for caffeine begins. Traditionally, the options consist of throwing away said coffee and the $5 you spent on it, complaining to the barista and asking for another or gritting and gulping your way through it.
But according to the scientific food wizards at Bon Appetit, the solution isn’t any of the above. It’s actually salt.
It’s understandable if you’re a little confused and thinking, ‘are you sure she didn’t mean sugar?’ But we definitely meant salt and here’s why: the chemical makeup of salt acts as a barrier that stops our tongues from picking up on bitter tastes while simultaneously enhancing our ability to taste sweet flavours. Meaning the bad taste is eradicated and the good tastes are heightened.
Even better, you don’t need much salt to make a serious difference. While sugar is traditionally added by the teaspoon, US chef Alton Brown says as little as a quarter of a teaspoon can do the trick when added to a six-cup batch of coffee. So if you’re nursing a takeaway, a mere pinch should easily do the trick. As with all things in life, if you’re unsure, start small and add as needed because if you add too much your coffee runs the risk of turning briny and tasting like a jar of pickles (no thank you).
With almost 75 per cent of Australian adults drinking coffee, dietician Joel Feren says the simple flavour-enhancing hack offers people a simple solution to making a bad cup of coffee great.
“We know that coffee can help with things like liver health and can reduce your risk for Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease and can reduce inflammation. So if you need a little bit of salt to help the medicine go down, so to speak, then I'm all for it,” he says.
Generally people add sugar to their coffee, not salt. Image: iStock
And while the general message is to have a low-salt or no added salt diet, Feren says a pinch stirred into your coffee is relatively safe for the majority of people, especially if it stops you from reaching for traditional flavour enhancers like sugar or sweeteners.
“At the end of the day, if we know that it's going to enhance the flavour and potentially reduce your sugar consumption by two teaspoons to improve the taste just by adding a dash of salt, I think it's probably a positive step.”
What’s more, salt plays a vital role in our overall health.
“Salt is pretty much involved in every chemical reaction in our bodies,” Feren points out before adding that any dietary additions or swaps be made from a place of understanding, not least because research from The Heart Foundation shows Australians ingest almost double the recommended daily intake of salt each day.
“Each person has to make sense of their health needs and if they're maybe looking to reduce their sugar consumption that's where you could look at adding in a pinch of salt. But if people have kidney issues, or they have elevated blood pressure, it’s important not to be adding salt.
He adds, “It’s all about moderating your intake where you can, and less is more but a little pinch of salt in your coffee is not going to be someone’s downfall.”
While this hack reeks of a TikTok trend waiting to happen, research shows that adding salt to coffee isn’t actually anything new. The tradition is one that stretches back hundreds of years in countries like Hungary and Turkey, and in Vietnam coffee is often served with salted milk or salted cream.
