Top Fruits to Enhance Your Coffee Experience

Coffee may have been discovered over 1,000 years after the Sumerians codified the oldest beer recipe, but we humans are no less obsessed with this deliciously bitter, caffeinated drink. Legend has it that an Ethiopian farmer tasted some fruits from a coffee bush after noticing how eating them energized his flock of goats. He shared his discovery with other people in his community, and centuries later, we have everything from oat milk cappuccinos to fizzy and refreshing iced coffee soda.

The innovations haven’t stopped there. Professional baristas and coffee hobbyists alike are enhancing their coffee with everything from the expected caramel, chocolate, and whipped cream to turmeric and even fresh fruit. While fruit may seem like an odd choice to pair with coffee — especially considering the acidity inherent in both — adding fruit directly to your coffee is shockingly delicious. This combination works because the acidity in fruit usually comes through as tangy rather than bitter, which helps soften the edges of coffee’s sharpness.

With the coffee’s bitterness somewhat tamed, other flavor notes become stronger, shine through, and are further enhanced by whatever fruit you’ve added to your brew. Think nutty undertones playing against bright, sugary berries, chocolate notes mingling with juicy stone fruit, or the coffee’s own fruity sweetness elevating the zesty tang of citrus. Whether you’re a die-hard coffee purist or can’t live without your triple-shot caramel macchiato in the morning, this combination is worth a try, as it’s sure to please a wide range of palates.

Blueberries vary widely in flavor from shockingly tart to mellow and sweet, which is why they’re often best eaten by the handful. This is also why they’re a lovely pairing for your coffee. The tart flavors elevate fruity nuances in your brew, while the sweeter berries enhance its aromatic nuttiness. Plus, when treated correctly, blueberries take on an almost candy-like quality that melds seamlessly with both bold, chocolatey dark roasts and lighter, more acidic blonde varieties.

To imbue your coffee with the most blueberry flavor, you’ll likely need to add some kind of sweetener — this is the secret to that candied flavor mentioned earlier. Honey or maple syrup are especially good choices, as they add richness while enhancing blueberries’ natural fruitiness.

Strawberries are featured at the center of dozens of desserts, not only because they’re freakin’ delicious, but also because they pair so well with lots of other flavors — particularly if there’s some bitterness involved. Strawberries are intensely sweet, tangy, and floral, all flavors that counteract unpleasant levels of bitterness, making them an excellent addition to your freshly brewed cuppa.

However, strawberries’ subtlety can easily get lost, so you’ll want to enhance their flavor as much as possible. A great way to do this is to macerate your strawberries with a little sugar and vanilla extract. You can then simply spoon some of that syrupy goodness straight into your coffee cup, along with some steamed oat milk for a berries and cream vibe. This is bound to taste great hot or cold, so prep your coffee using your preferred method before stirring in that strawberry goodness.

If you’re looking for a new morning beverage to enjoy this summer, a mango-infused Indian cappuccino made with instant coffee may be the iced coffee upgrade of your dreams. Featuring instant coffee crystals whipped with sugar and water until frothy, these cappuccinos are usually served over ice-cold milk — perfect for sipping on a hot day. Adding mango to the mix brings a floral, honey-like sweetness to the drink that mingles beautifully with coffee’s fruity notes. It’s similar to a mango lassi just slightly more complex.

To add lots of mango flavor to this recipe, try swapping the water for mango juice or blending mango puree into your milk before blending everything together. If caps aren’t your thing, cubed and frozen mango will keep your iced latte cold while slowly imparting flavor. Mango is particularly good with Ethiopian coffee, which is floral, sweet, and lighter than familiar Arabica blends.

Okay, so technically coconuts are seeds, but they’re so often used the same way fruits are that this distinction is fairly moot. Besides, it doesn’t pay to be pedantic when the tradeoff is missing out on something so delicious. Coconut is at once creamy and aromatic, making it a craveable foil against coffee’s bitter astringence. Together, they create a refreshingly tropical brew that smells as good as it tastes.

The tricky part of this combo is choosing how to add coconut flavor to your coffee. Though coconut milk in coffee has a tendency to curdle, adding coconut flakes to your grounds before brewing may do the trick. You can also upgrade your cold brew coffee with coconut water for a morning pick-me-up that’s both energizing and hydrating. Additionally, a teaspoon of coconut sugar is not only on theme but also enhances coconut’s rich, creamy, and nutty earthiness.

If you love chocolate-covered cherries, cherry-infused coffee may be the next artisanal treat you need to try. Cherries are sugary and floral with a subtle almond flavor perfect for adding richness and interest to chocolate-forward coffees — particularly dark roasts and Guatemalan blends. Cherries also contain melatonin, so adding them to your java may help prevent the jitters or make your evening cup of decaf even more soothing.

Nice dark Rainier cherries are among the sweetest and will add the most cherry flavor to your coffee. Try muddling a few pitted fruits in the bottom of your mug before adding steaming hot java on top. To bring out the cherry-chocolate finish even more, add a few drops of almond extract and the barest splash of heavy cream. The almond extract will make the cherries taste sweeter, while the cream contains fat that helps elevate and blend the flavors.

Move over pumpkin spice, there’s a new fall flavor that just may replace America’s most iconic autumn-inspired latte. Though apple’s lightly floral taste may seem more suited to pairing with tea, apples feature many flavor notes that combine beautifully with coffee to create a well-balanced beverage with a delicate, almost candied flavor. 

Sweeter apples, such as the Pink Lady, Gala, or the bright yellow Opal, work especially well as they’re lower in acidity with more sugars to give your coffee a creamy mouthfeel. South American beans — particularly from Brazil or Columbia — are fantastic for blending with apples for their caramel and chocolate undertones. While you can certainly plop some thinly sliced fruit right into your java, adding fresh apples to your French press and letting them steep with coffee will help the flavors marry, as will a dash of cinnamon.

We get it — this combination is a bit of a hard sell at first, but we promise it’s worth a try. It may seem like the sour notes in the orange would enhance the bitterness in your coffee (objectively the worst part of both things), but with the right balance, the opposite is actually true. The acidity in the coffee and orange balance each other out, creating a flavor reminiscent of a chocolate-covered creamsicle.

Instead of splashing low-pulp orange juice into your morning brew, competitive barista Morgan Eckroth suggests using the peels to make a delectably sweet and easy simple syrup. The oils in the peels hold a ton of intensely orangey flavor, which becomes even stronger when infused into a syrup. The best coffee pairings for this syrup include Central American varieties, which are well-known for their fruity, sweet, and chocolate-forward flavor profiles.

If you’re looking for a wintry coffee concoction that’s not drenched in molasses or peppermint extract, pomegranate may be the sophisticated alternative you’re looking for. Its vibrant, citrusy tang is cleanly balanced by a subtle floral sweetness that can add just the right notes of fruity deliciousness to your morning joe. Of course, pomegranates are notoriously difficult to open, so you may want to harvest the gemlike arils in advance or use pure bottle juice.

If using the arils, try lightly crushing them and adding them to your French press, or put them in a tea infuser and pop it into your mug to get the essence of pomegranate without the crunch. With juice, start with a teaspoon or two added directly to your mug and taste until you find your preferred ratio. A dash of cinnamon or nutmeg will curb any excess astringence. If you run into any problems during your drink mixing journey, explore these common coffee flavor mistakes to troubleshoot.