What Really Happens When You Add Mashed Avocado To Your Coffee

You may have seen the viral TikToks where the poster is making coffee with "things they shouldn't." In one particular post, that thing is an avocado. The post shows them mashing an avocado in a jar, adding milk, shaking to mix it all together, and then straining the mixture, to make what they call "avocado milk" (which is actually a thing; however, brands that have sold it have simply added avocado to oat milk rather than developing a milk that's entirely avocado-based or adding avocado to regular milk). The poster then makes some espresso and adds both the espresso and the "avocado milk" to a glass with ice. The poster doesn't really give much of a verdict as to whether or not the mixture is successful, but when a commenter noted that the combo "makes sense because avocado is very creamy and actually very sweet and rich," they chimed in with "who woulda thought." Possibly giving this idea some credibility is that Starbucks did offer an avocado frap in South Korea.

So is this a mixture you need to add to your breakfast routine? To help you decide, I gave it a try, sacrificing a few guac-worthy avocados and a couple of cups of coffee. Here's what I found.

The ingredients for this avocado-based latte couldn't be any simpler. All you need is one avocado, regular milk, a tempered glass mug (or a regular non-glass mug), and two shots of espresso. While, in the viral TikTok, the poster uses a fancy espresso machine to make his two shots of espresso, most aren't going to have access to this kind of countertop appliance in their kitchen, so I'm using Starbucks Blonde Espresso pods in a much more budget-friendly Nespresso espresso machine.

If you try this at home, be sure to shop for your avocados carefully. The avocados really need to be that often-elusive perfect level of ripeness for this recipe. Even though you're mashing them, the green hue does impact the milk mixture's appearance, so you don't want any brown discoloration, particularly if you plan on layering your coffee rather than mixing it (as you'll see is the case in one variation of this recipe). 

First, you have to make the avocado milk. Pit, peel, slice, and dice your avocados and add them to your vessel of choice. While the TikTok showed a glass jar, that just honestly seemed like it would make mixing too difficult. How long are you going to have to shake that jar to get a nice, thorough avocado-milk mixture? Probably too long.

For this reason, I chose to add the diced avocado to a glass bowl before mashing it with a fork and then adding in the milk. Then, to blend the ingredients together with minimal effort, I used an immersion blender for just a few seconds. The only downside that I didn't think of was that, like a total rookie, I didn't account for the bowl's size and the minimal amount of liquid, and, as is common with immersion blenders, it splattered a bit. Proceed with caution. Once combined, I strained the mixture, removing all the leftover avocado chunks.

As instructed by the TikTok post, I used two shots of espresso for my avocado milk latte. After filling my glass with ice, I poured in the strained avocado milk mixture. The straining is very important; in the first version I made, I forgot this step and ended up with a chunky, milky coffee mixture — not very appetizing. The straining process can be a little messy/unwieldy if you're working with a normal-sized colander and not a small, cup-sized strainer like the one shown in the original video. You'll have to dirty up an additional bowl. (As for the leftover avocado pieces, don't toss them; even if you don't like the avocado milk, you can rinse the leftover avocado and eat it another way).

After the milk came the two shots of espresso. Even though you're mixing everything together in the end, I did find that the order of adding the ingredients to the glass mattered. Add the espresso first and the ice starts melting immediately. Add the ice last and you're splashing espresso and milk everywhere.

As previously mentioned, shaking the mashed avocado and milk together in a small mason jar isn't exactly an ideal choice for this drink recipe. One, it requires that you actually have a small mason jar handy and, two, it's just extra work and time required. I found that the immersion blender route gave me a nice thoroughly mixed consistency, allowing the milk to take on the flavor of the avocado, without entirely blending them together into an avocado cream. I only gave the mixture a few pulses, so there were still some larger pieces of avocado present. If you want to try this drink without using the mason jar or an immersion blender, you could potentially mix the avocado and milk using a blender or food processor, but keep in mind that you'll likely end up with more of an avocado cream than a strainable milk.

Additionally, for being so simple, this recipe does require a lot of specialty equipment that the average person might not have. There's an espresso machine involved. The mini strainer also definitely comes in handy so you're not dirtying up multiple bowls and you can strain the avocado milk directly into your ice-filled glass.

So was this avocado milk latte really as creamy, sweet, and rich as promised? Not quite. Yes, the avocado definitely made the drink a lot creamier than it would've been had I just added plain milk to the espresso. The mouthfeel was thick and fatty — much like that of an avocado.

As for the flavor, it was slightly richer than what you'd get from just adding regular milk to a glass of espresso. That said, could it really be called "sweet?" No, but then I don't think of avocados as sweet anyway; if you disagree, you may find that the avocado milk does add a touch of sweetness. However, if you're going into this drink thinking that the avocado is going to take the place of other sweeteners in your coffee, you'll be disappointed. There's nothing syrup or sugar-adjacent about this. If you prefer your coffee truly sweet, look elsewhere.

As mentioned, not everyone has an espresso machine at home, not even the more affordable variant from Nespresso that I have, and understandably so. So, to see how this drink fares when the espresso is out of the picture, I also made a variant using my handy Keurig and a few K-cups. I went with Green Mountain's Nantucket blend, because that's what I'm accustomed to drinking on an average day, and I wanted to see how this avocado "hack" might fare in my average cup of coffee.

The Keurig take on this recipe does come with an unforeseen issue: You end up with too much coffee. The smallest cup size that my particular Keurig model makes is an 8-ounce cup of coffee. I used two shots in the espresso version of this drink, for 3 total ounces. That's a big difference, so you can either not add all of the Keurig coffee to your avocado milk and have some leftover, or you can use all the coffee and end up with a coffee-avocado milk ratio that's not quite right (unless you make more avocado milk, which is going to require more avocados). For this reason, the Keurig version was less than ideal and, additionally, the flavors just weren't there. The espresso version was richer, with two shots of espresso just the right amount for one avocado's worth of milk.

In the comments section of the original TikTok, multiple people mentioned a version of this avocado milk coffee that's popular in Asia. With just a little searching, I found a Vietnamese recipe that was quite similar, with the primary difference between the two methods being that the Vietnamese recipe added two tablespoons of condensed milk. Additionally, this version required you to thoroughly blend the avocado, condensed milk, and regular milk together for a thicker, uniform mixture, no straining required. Just like with the original recipe, this one asked you to pour the avocado milk mixture over ice and then your coffee over the mixture. However, you don't mix it all up; you leave everything layered.

I really liked that this version included condensed milk. It gave the avocado milk a pronounced sweetness that worked well with the fatty avocado. I'll admit that I started eating the mixture straight from the bowl. I also used the espresso in this version, given that the Keurig variant was less than ideal. However, the mixture didn't layer as nicely as I expected and the avocado mixture tried to escape from the bottom immediately.

So should you start adding avocados to your coffee? No. There's a reason why that original TikTok was part of a series called "Making coffee with things I shouldn't."

Admittedly, the Vietnamese version of avocado coffee was good, if not as pretty and layered as expected. However, I'm chalking that up to the condensed milk, not the avocado, and if you remove the avocado and regular milk from this equation, you simply get Vietnamese iced coffee, which is made with coffee, water, and condensed milk.

There's no reason to make avocado milk (unless you just really want some) and there's no reason to add it to your coffee (unless you just really want to). I can't say that it makes the coffee better in any way, just different. It's not necessarily bad — it's just not good enough to warrant using a whole avocado. The avocado milk certainly isn't going to take the place of a sweetener or flavored creamer if you prefer your coffee with more than just the slightest hint of added flavor and texture.