Olive Oil in Coffee: What It Does, How to Make It, and Whether It Is Worth It
Olive oil in coffee went from an Italian curiosity to a chain-café menu in 2023, and a lot of people are still quietly trying it at home. The idea is simple: a spoonful of extra virgin olive oil stirred, shaken or blended into your morning coffee. What it actually does is less mysterious than the marketing suggests. It changes the texture and the taste, it adds around 120 calories a tablespoon, and — for some people — it moves things along faster than they expected. No published human trial has tested olive oil in coffee itself. This article covers what happens in the cup, how to make it well, which oil to use, and whether it is worth doing at all.
For our own oil, see our cold-pressed organic Marrakech olive oil.
The Short Answer
- Olive oil in coffee is a flavour and texture choice, not a health hack. Blended in, it gives a silkier cup; stirred in, it mostly floats on top.
- No published human trial has studied olive oil added to coffee. The health research people quote — such as the 7,447-person PREDIMED trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine — looked at olive oil within a whole Mediterranean diet, not in a cup.
- Hot coffee is gentler on olive oil than cooking. In a 2009 laboratory study, oleocanthal lost at most 16% even when the oil was heated to 100–240°C.
- Start with one teaspoon per cup and blend or froth it. A tablespoon adds around 120 calories, and larger amounts can have a laxative effect.
- Use a fresh, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil. Refined or "light" oils add calories without the flavour or polyphenols.
- Sidr & Stone's olive oil is a single-estate, rain-fed, cold-pressed extra virgin oil from our own farm outside Marrakech — the kind of oil whose flavour survives a hot cup.
Where the Olive Oil Coffee Trend Came From
The trend has a clear starting point. On 22 February 2023, Starbucks launched Oleato in Italy — a range of coffee drinks infused with Partanna cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, championed by Howard Schultz.
It did not last there. In late 2024 Starbucks confirmed it was removing Oleato from its US cafés in early November, describing the decision as part of simplifying its menu; the drinks continued at the time in China, Italy and Japan. Some customers had also complained online that the drinks upset their stomachs — anecdote rather than evidence, but consistent with what a spoonful of fat can do on an empty stomach.
So olive oil coffee is a recent café invention, not an ancient ritual. The case for it has to stand on taste and on what olive oil itself offers.
What Actually Happens When Olive Oil Meets Coffee
Oil and water do not mix, and coffee is almost entirely water. Stir a spoonful of olive oil into a black coffee and most of it floats to the surface as a sheen and scattered beads. Your first sips are oily; the last sips are mostly coffee.
Blending changes that. A blender or handheld frother breaks the oil into tiny droplets and suspends them through the coffee, giving a lighter colour, a fine foam and a noticeably silkier, rounder body — the same principle as butter-style "bulletproof" coffee. The emulsion is temporary, though. Leave the cup for ten minutes and the oil starts to separate again.
Flavour is the other change. A good extra virgin olive oil brings fruitiness, some bitterness and a peppery catch at the back of the throat. Against coffee's own bitterness, that can read as savoury, nutty or grassy. Some people love it; plenty do not. A mild, buttery oil disappears into the cup, while a robust, peppery one announces itself.
Does Hot Coffee Damage the Olive Oil?
Less than you might fear. Coffee is brewed just below boiling and drunk well below that, which is far cooler than a frying pan. The most useful evidence comes from Cicerale and colleagues, who in 2009 in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry heated one extra virgin olive oil at 100, 170 and 240°C for up to 90 minutes. Oleocanthal — the compound behind the throat sting — lost at most 16% of its concentration, although its measured pungency fell by up to 31% with longer heating.
That study has clear limits. It tested a single oil, heated on its own rather than in coffee, and a laboratory taste test is not a health outcome. But its lowest temperature was already hotter than a cup of coffee, and a cup is drunk in minutes, not held at heat for an hour and a half.
The practical point: pour the oil into the coffee after brewing, never into the pot on the hob, and do not reheat the finished cup. For how olive oil behaves at real cooking temperatures, see our guide to olive oil at high heat.
How to Make Olive Oil Coffee (Method and Ratios)
Blending works best, and the ratio should start small:
- Brew a normal cup of black coffee or a double espresso — around 200–250ml.
- Add one teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil. Work up to a tablespoon only if you enjoy it and it sits well.
- Blend for 15–20 seconds with a jug blender, or froth for 20–30 seconds with a handheld frother, until the colour lightens and a fine foam forms.
- Taste before adding anything else. A little honey or a pinch of cinnamon softens a peppery oil.
- Drink it within ten minutes, before the oil separates.
For an iced version, shake a double espresso, ice and a teaspoon of oil hard in a sealed jar for 20 seconds; the cold helps the emulsion hold. Stirring with a spoon technically works, but expect an oily top layer. If you already take black seed oil in your morning cup, our guide to black seed oil in coffee covers that combination.
What the Research Does — and Doesn't — Say
The research is about olive oil in the diet, not about coffee. We could find no published human trial that tested olive oil stirred or blended into coffee. Any claim that "olive oil coffee" does something specific — slows caffeine, protects the gut, burns fat — is borrowing from general olive oil evidence or from nothing at all.
That general evidence is real, but it needs reading carefully. The PREDIMED trial (Estruch and colleagues, New England Journal of Medicine, 2018) assigned 7,447 Spanish adults aged 55–80 at high cardiovascular risk to a Mediterranean diet with extra virgin olive oil, one with nuts, or low-fat advice; after a median 4.8 years, the olive oil group had fewer major cardiovascular events (hazard ratio 0.69). Its limits matter: this was a whole dietary pattern, and the 2018 paper replaced a 2013 report withdrawn after randomisation problems at some sites.
In an observational analysis of 92,383 US health professionals followed for 28 years (Guasch-Ferré and colleagues, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2022), people eating more than half a tablespoon of olive oil a day had 19% lower all-cause mortality than those who rarely ate it. Observational data cannot prove cause, and those people were not putting it in coffee. Our article on olive oil and heart health goes further into that literature.
Which Olive Oil to Use in Coffee
The oil matters more than the method. The compounds that give extra virgin olive oil its bitterness and pepper — oleocanthal, oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol — are the same polyphenols researchers study, and they are highest in fresh, cold-pressed oil. In 2005 Beauchamp and colleagues reported in Nature that oleocanthal causes olive oil's throat sting; that is a sensory and laboratory finding, not a benefit of drinking it.
| Oil type | In the cup | Polyphenols | Verdict for coffee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fresh, cold-pressed extra virgin (robust) | Fruity, bitter, peppery finish | Highest | Best for flavour; start with a teaspoon |
| Extra virgin (mild, buttery) | Smooth, rounder body, gentle fruit | Moderate | Easiest first try |
| Old or badly stored extra virgin | Flat, waxy or stale notes | Reduced | Avoid — rancidity shows in coffee |
| Refined, "pure" or "light" | Neutral, just oily | Low | Adds calories, little else |
Look for a harvest date, dark glass and a single named origin. For a fuller walkthrough, see our guide to choosing a quality olive oil, and for the chemistry, our explainer on olive oil polyphenols.
Is It Worth It? The Honest Objections
"Why not just eat the olive oil with food?" A fair question, and for most people the better answer. Olive oil on salad, bread or vegetables delivers the same oil without the separation problem. Coffee is worth it only if you genuinely like the taste and texture.
"Isn't it just extra calories?" A tablespoon of olive oil is around 120 calories. Added on top of an unchanged diet, that is simply more energy; replacing a sugary pastry or a dairy creamer is a different matter. We make no weight-loss case for it.
"Will it upset my stomach?" It can. Fat taken quickly on an empty stomach has a mild laxative effect in some people, which fits the Oleato complaints. Start with a teaspoon, have it with breakfast, and build slowly. If you want to take olive oil neat instead, our guide to drinking olive oil covers that approach.
Why Sidr & Stone
If olive oil in coffee is mainly about flavour, the oil's freshness and handling decide whether the cup tastes of fruit and pepper or of nothing much. That is the part we control from tree to bottle.
- Single-estate — Sidr & Stone's olive oil comes from our own family-owned farm near Marrakech, Morocco, with no blending across origins.
- Rain-fed — our trees are not irrigated; they take what the season gives.
- Organically grown — no synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides are used on our farm.
- Single harvest — each batch is small and limited, picked when the fruit is ready.
- Cold-pressed within hours of harvest — which protects flavour, aroma and polyphenols.
- Unfiltered extra virgin — minimally processed, so it may show natural sediment, which is normal.
- 100% natural — one ingredient, olive oil, nothing added.
- Dark glass with a gold label — packaging that protects the oil from light.
- 10% of profits to charity — a brand-wide Sidr & Stone commitment.
- Fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
We will not tell you Sidr & Stone is the best olive oil for coffee — that would be the very kind of claim this article warns against. What we will say is that our oil is single-estate Moroccan, rain-fed, organically grown and cold-pressed within hours of harvest, and that the care shows in the taste and colour of the small single-harvest batch.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it good to put olive oil in coffee?
It is fine for most healthy adults and can taste good, but no trial has tested olive oil in coffee. The research concerns olive oil as part of an overall diet.
Why do people put olive oil in coffee?
Mostly for texture and flavour. The trend took off after Starbucks launched its Oleato drinks in Italy in 2023.
How much olive oil should I put in my coffee?
Start with one teaspoon per cup and build to a tablespoon at most if it suits you. Blend or froth it rather than stirring, so it does not float on top.
Does olive oil in coffee break a fast or cause weight loss?
A tablespoon carries around 120 calories, so it is not calorie-free. There is no good evidence that olive oil in coffee causes weight loss; any effect depends on your overall diet.
How is Sidr & Stone olive oil different for coffee?
It is a single-estate, rain-fed, cold-pressed extra virgin oil from our own farm outside Marrakech, unfiltered and bottled in dark glass — handled to keep the fruit and pepper that make it worth trying in coffee.
Why did Starbucks stop selling Oleato?
Starbucks removed Oleato from US cafés in November 2024, describing it as part of simplifying its menu. Some customers had complained of stomach upset, though that was never the company's stated reason.
Where can I buy olive oil suitable for coffee?
Any fresh extra virgin olive oil with a harvest date and dark glass will do. Ours is available to pre-order online, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Is olive oil a medicine?
No. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine. It has a long traditional history — including being honoured in the Prophetic Sunnah — and a substantial body of modern research, particularly around polyphenols, cardiovascular health, and the Mediterranean diet pattern. It can be a worthwhile part of a healthy routine, but it does not cure diseases and is not a substitute for medical care. Be cautious of any olive oil marketed with specific disease-cure claims.
Final Thoughts
Olive oil in coffee is neither a miracle nor a gimmick to sneer at. Blended well, it makes a genuinely pleasant, silky cup with a savoury edge. The health research is real, but it belongs to olive oil in the diet — not to the coffee cup.
If you try it, keep it simple: a teaspoon, a blender or frother, a fresh cold-pressed oil, and an honest verdict from your own palate and stomach. If you do not enjoy it, put the olive oil on your food instead and lose nothing.
Our cold-pressed organic Marrakech olive oil — single-estate, rain-fed and pressed within hours of harvest — is available to pre-order from the current single-harvest batch, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Our extra virgin olive oil is grown organically on our own single-estate farm on the plains outside Marrakech: we control every step from tree to bottle, and no synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers are used. It is not yet certified organic — certification is in progress, and we will publish it as soon as it comes through.
Pre-Order Sidr & Stone Organic Marrakech Olive Oil — Limited Single-Harvest Batch →
Disclaimer: This article explains what is known about adding olive oil to coffee at the time of writing; research findings and brand practices may change, and readers should check current sources. References to Starbucks describe publicly reported events and are not affiliated with or endorsed by Starbucks. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine, and is not a substitute for medical treatment of any condition. For any health concern, consult a qualified medical professional.