Everyone’s heard of a Caramel Latte and there aren’t too many coffee outlets that don’t offer a range of flavoured options to sweeten up your coffee. But in the wider beverage world, syrups are used much more creatively to develop interesting and tasty new drinks and its arguably time coffee and the daytime cafe sector caught up.
There is now the internationally recognised “World of Coffee in good spirits” competition, where previously no alcohol or syrup was allowed in the pure barista championships, we also have cold brew and interesting varied use of already brewed coffee as a base ingredient for new drinks such as Craft Soda variants. So there are new and tasty options in this area already.

So what do syrups do when it comes to coffee? Well, they add an artificial flavour to a coffee and sweeten it. The flavours now range from ubiquitous and well known caramel and vanilla to Butterscotch, Strawberry or even Elderflower.

It’s often the case that young people first start drinking coffee by trying it with milk or sugar, as this may be more palatable. It is a big step to go straight in there with a double espresso when you’re first acquiring a taste for coffee. It is also true that several well known flavours can be detected in pure unadulterated black coffee such as Hazelnut (often in Brazilian beans), Blueberry, in naturally processed Ethiopian Harar or some specialty lots, or Apricot, Lemon and Jasmine in complex washed Ethiopian coffee for example, so there is scope to use quality syrup to accentuate and improve the coffee experience.
Moreover, Frappes, Milkshakes, Craft Soda’s and other Iced drinks do not need to be tarnished with an unhealthy low quality synthetic reputation as they often have been. A quality syrup driven beverage experience is possible and should be promoted by hospitality business owners as an opportunity to augment their drinks menu and deliver a more varied enjoyable high quality customer experience.
