For the Best Cup of Coffee, Here’s Why You Should Always Add Your Sugar First

For the Best Cup of Coffee, Here’s Why You Should Always Add Your Sugar First

For the Best Cup ofCoffee, Here’s Why You Should Always AddYour Sugar First For the best coffee drinking experience,you need any sugar you add to dissolve. To make your sugar dissolve the quickest,you need to add it to a piping hot cup ofcoffee ...

Unless you pour yourself a cup of black coffee in the morning, you’re probably stirring in something to make it a little sweeter or creamier, like sugar, milk, or coffee creamer. But depending on what order you’re adding them to your cup, your coffee might not be as tasty as it could be.

Really, it’s all about the sugar. Your coffee and creamer are both already liquids, so stirring them together is easy, but for the best coffee drinking experience, you need any sugar you add to dissolve. And to make your sugar dissolve the quickest, you need to add it to a piping hot cup of coffee before you pour in any cream or milk.

Related: We've Heard Cold Brew Is Less Acidic than Hot Coffee—Is That True?

Sugar dissolves best in hot liquids—a spoonful will dissolve almost instantly without much stirring if you add it to a hot drink, but it’ll dissolve much more slowly and require more stirring if you add it to a cold drink. That’s why coffee shops usually use simple syrup to sweeten iced coffee drinks because it’s much quicker to mix in than waiting for sugar to dissolve. And it’s also why, if you add a couple of spoonfuls to your iced tea in the summer, you’ll probably end up with a clump of undissolved sugar at the bottom of your cup.

So when you’re adding sugar to your coffee, you want the coffee to be as hot as possible when you spoon it in so it’ll dissolve quickly and evenly. When you add cold milk or creamer, you’re lowering the temperature of your cup of coffee and making it cooler. So if you add sugar after your creamer, the cup of coffee will be cooler when the sugar goes in, and it won’t dissolve as easily, meaning you could end up with a lump of undissolved sugar crystals at the bottom of your cup. And if the sugar isn’t dissolving and is just sitting at the bottom, it’s also not really doing its job of making your coffee sweeter.

Related: 13 Iced Starbucks Drinks for Summer That Are 100 Calories or Less

This trick might not completely revolutionize your morning routine, but if you need a cup of coffee to help you start your day, saving yourself a minute or two in the morning by adding your sugar first might get your morning off to a smoother start. And we’d definitely take an extra minute to spare as part of our morning routine!