Mixing Protein Powder with Coffee [Can You and Should You?]

You’ve been sitting in your gym’s locker room for about five minutes when your training partner arrives — late as usual — with a newly purchased cup of black coffee in his hand.

“I thought you said you were done drinking coffee before we trained,” you ask him in a sarcastic tone.

Your training buddy simply smiles back at you, removes the lid from his coffee, and withdraws a container of whey protein from his gym bag. Without hesitating, he proceeds to add 30 grams of protein to his morning cup of coffee, whisks it all together with a plastic stir, and then places the lid back and begins to sip it.

“What on earth are you doing?!” you ask him. “Did you just mix protein powder into your coffee?!”

“Why not?” your friend shrugs. “I’m hungry. I didn’t have time for breakfast, and I need the caffeine to wake myself up if we’re going to lift today. Why shouldn’t I add protein to my coffee? Besides… it honestly tastes pretty good!”

Until you’d witnessed it firsthand, it never would have struck you as a good idea to add protein powder to your coffee, but aside from the initial weirdness of it, you’re having a difficult time coming up with a reason why it would be a bad idea.

So that’s the real question you’d like an answer to: Can you mix protein powder with coffee? On top of that, you’d also like to know if adding protein powder to hot coffee could be a special formula that would be beneficial to your overall health.

Why Mix Coffee With Your Protein Powder?

If you’re asking whether or not adding protein powder to coffee is a good idea, then your question has an inherent assumption that you’re asking about its efficacy beyond simply tasting good. 

In essence, what you’re really asking is whether or not dropping unflavored protein powder in coffee would somehow make it even more beneficial to you than plain coffee, outside of the taste upgrades that flavored protein powder might provide you. The answer may surprise you, but it’s definitely yes.

Nutritional Boost

On its own, coffee is primarily consumed for its caffeine content, but it possesses valuable attributes outside of its ability to render you more vibrant and alert. This is because coffee actually possesses antioxidants at a level that exceeds the antioxidant value of black tea on a cup-for-cup basis.

Well, drinking protein powder mixed with coffee also provides you with all of the muscle-building benefits of protein. Since the amino acids that compose protein are the building blocks of muscle — and your body has a proven ability to take advantage of protein’s presence whether it’s taken before, during, or after a resistance training workout — the protein in your coffee contributes to your daily protein requirements just the same as if you drank it in plain water.

Convenience

One of the common concerns of busy people is the limitation of time, and when it comes to nutrition, there is the added complaint that it’s difficult to get all of your health needs met during a 24-hour period. In this way, mixing coffee and protein together enables you to quickly enjoy the benefits of both without drinking two separate early morning beverages.

This may seem like a minor point, but combining coffee and protein helps you to meet your protein needs while you get your morning pick-me-up, all in one fell swoop. 

If downing a cup of coffee is already one of your early morning habits, the added presence of protein powder will enable you to kill two birds with one stone.

Sustained Energy

The benefits of caffeine are often limited to its ability to make you alert and mentally prepared for work and other mental pursuits, or to keep you awake for late night studying and Netflix binge-watching sessions. 

Yes, caffeine will help with all of these pursuits, but there are several studies that demonstrate the clear advantages provided by caffeine in a fitness setting.

Studies clearly indicate that caffeine taken prior to exercise boosts the strength, power, and endurance of muscles, and these advantages extend to certain cardiovascular settings as well. (1) 

With this being the case, drinking coffee mixed with protein before or during exercise can improve your exercise performance on the front end, while simultaneously providing you with amino acids and the accompanying muscle growth on the back end.

How to Mix Protein Powder with Coffee

If you’re intrigued by the idea of using your morning coffee as a way to ensure that you’re getting enough protein, there are a few things that you should consider in order to make your experience as enjoyable as possible aside from how much protein to add.  

Choosing the Right Protein Powder

The type of protein powder you select to mix with your coffee has a lot to do with personal preferences along the lines of taste and texture. For instance, whey protein powder mixes with coffee in a way that is similar to placing powdered creamer in coffee, because whey is essentially a concentrated form of milk protein. 

This characteristic of whey helps it to be one of the first protein powders considered by people who enjoy mixing coffee with protein powder.

If you prefer to consume protein powders that are exclusively from plant-based sources, you may have to contend with a bit of a grainy texture due to the presence of more fiber. 

This is a common trait of plant protein, and while you may be accustomed to it in a blended protein shake containing spinach or berries, you may not appreciate it as much in a drink you expect to be smooth, like your morning coffee.

Mixing Techniques

You can mix coffee with any of your favorite protein powders the same way you would mix together any protein shake, by using a simple spoon to stir the protein powder into your coffee. However, if you prefer a more sophisticated approach to mix coffee with protein, you can use more advanced mixing utensils.

For example, you can use a portable milk frother to mix coffee and protein powder together; it will ensure a smooth blend, and make the actual drinking experience more enjoyable in general.

Flavor Pairings

While you might be tempted to think of placing protein powder in coffee as an equivalent process to blending together yet another protein shake, it is important to remember the differences. 

Specifically, when you are crafting protein shakes, the flavored protein powder is serving as the foundation of the drink; when you put protein powder in coffee, the coffee’s flavor is so overpowering that the protein powder becomes the accompaniment.

This being the case, and given the wide variety of available flavor options, you should treat your protein coffee as a form of flavored coffee, and only add protein powders that make the coffee taste good. On the other hand, if you don’t want to tinker with the flavor of your protein coffee, you can opt to use one of the many protein powders that are unflavored.

Benefits of Protein Coffee (Proffee)

It’s tempting to think that the proffee trend is merely a passing fad, but that’s unlikely considering the many health benefits associated with the joint consumption of coffee and protein powder. Whether you intend to accelerate your weight loss or your muscle recovery, protein coffee can faithfully assist you.

Muscle Recovery

General guidelines state that you need to eat a certain number of grams of proteins per pound of body weight each day to build muscle and optimize muscle recovery. These aren’t benefits that disappear when you add protein to your daily coffee.

Adding protein powder to your coffee grants you an opportunity to chip away at those required grams of protein, and accelerate the rate at which you accumulate muscle mass over time.

Weight Management

Not only can your proffee function as a preworkout drink by tossing some energy-giving caffeine into the mix, it also has sufficient protein to function as either a light meal, a low calorie meal replacement, or as one portion of a balanced breakfast. All of these are helpful in bringing about healthy weight loss.

In the majority of these scenarios, your protein coffee is boosting your protein intake. Studies indicate that increasing protein intake results in increased satiety without adding more calories to your diet, thereby resulting in weight loss. (2)

As a result, protein coffee can be a key component of a short- or long-term weight loss plan, and can at least help you to reduce the likelihood of unwanted weight gain. 

Also, by replacing some other meal options and beverages that you might otherwise have consumed, protein coffee can reduce the likelihood that you’ll have to contend with issues like heart disease. Even so, since obesity is the foremost cause of heart disease, consuming protein as part of a weight loss strategy will assist you with accomplishing this goal as well.

Enhanced Focus

While the physical boost that caffeine can administer to your system is usually what is being chased when you look for a source of caffeine, a cup of hot coffee will also provide you with mental stimulation as well. In fact, there is evidence that the long-term consumption of caffeine actually reduces cognitive decline. (3)

Therefore, when you mix together coffee and protein powder with your pre-workout meal, or as a standalone beverage, it helps to provide you with the focus required to stay on task and remain fully engrossed in your training.

Potential Drawbacks and How to Avoid Them

Using coffee as a conduit to elevate your protein intake may sound like a smooth and straightforward process, but the combination of coffee and protein powder won’t sit equally well with everyone. 

In the spirit of full disclosure, here are a few common issues that some people encounter when they start drinking protein coffee. Most of these are relatively minor even if they rear their head, but others might be worth talking over with a registered dietitian or a healthcare provider all the same.

Clumping Issues

Protein powders can clump together in any drink setting, whether you’re testing out protein coffee, or whether you’re blending together an ordinary protein shake. These reasons may include the specific protein source you’re using, which may be more likely than others to clump, and also the temperature of the liquid, as protein powder is more likely to clump in cold liquid than warm or hot liquid.

What this means for you is that an iced coffee is probably not the ideal format for proffee to be served in. So if cold coffee is your personal preference, you may be stuck contending with morning clumps in your coffee, or simply using special mixing methods like milk frothers to ensure the smoothest possible mixture of protein coffee. 

Taste Considerations

For some people, adding a protein boost to your coffee that is equivalent to what you would put in your protein shakes is all the sweetness you would ever require out of your protein coffee. 

For other people who would never dream of drinking a cup of coffee without a pile of added sugar or some artificial sweeteners dumped into it, adding protein powder alone won’t be enough to satisfy you.

In this case, you’ll probably want to avoid a bunch of added sugar and keep the artificial sweeteners handy if you want to score some extra protein through your coffee while making everything palatable to you. At least this way, you can increase your total protein while continuing to keep your body weight under control.

Digestive Concerns

The very same feature that makes your favorite protein powder the best protein powder for mixing with coffee may also make it uncomfortable once it makes its way past your tastebuds. This is simply because the absence of fiber in some protein powders might cause it to disagree with your digestive system. 

Also, if your protein contains additional sweeteners, those have been known to cause digestive distress in some people as well. Aside from that, even if you weren’t in the business of adding protein to your coffee, it’s quite common for coffee to cause digestive issues on its own. 

The caffeine in coffee is a natural laxative, which can lead to issues like diarrhea or loose stools. Furthermore, coffee can enhance your production of stomach acid, which not only causes additional distress, but can also lead to gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Your New Morning Tradition?

If you’re looking for a way to squeeze more protein into your diet, a morning cup of proffee may very well be the solution you’re looking for. It’s likely to perk you up, boost your energy, improve your focus, and help you repair your muscles, all in a single cup. 

Over the long term, routinely consuming more protein first thing in the morning may actually improve your chances of weight loss. This means that by increasing the number of grams of protein you consume, you can eliminate more pounds of body fat over time. Now that’s a nutrition strategy worth drinking to.

References:

1. Grgic J. Effects of Caffeine on Resistance Exercise: A Review of Recent Research. Sports Med. 2021 Nov;51(11):2281-2298. doi: 10.1007/s40279-021-01521-x. Epub 2021 Jul 22. PMID: 34291426.

2. Moon J, Koh G. Clinical Evidence and Mechanisms of High-Protein Diet-Induced Weight Loss. J Obes Metab Syndr. 2020 Sep 30;29(3):166-173. doi: 10.7570/jomes20028. PMID: 32699189; PMCID: PMC7539343.

3. Nehlig A. Effects of coffee/caffeine on brain health and disease: What should I tell my patients? Pract Neurol. 2016 Apr;16(2):89-95. doi: 10.1136/practneurol-2015-001162. Epub 2015 Dec 16. PMID: 26677204.