Why More People Are Putting Butter in Their Coffee

Coffee shops have spent years experimenting with oat milk, cold brew and elaborate syrups, but one of the more unusual additions to catch on has nothing to do with flavor at all. Plenty of people now blend an actual stick of butter straight into their morning cup.

The trend has a name, Bulletproof coffee, and an origin story that starts about as far from a coffee shop as possible. What began as a niche biohacking experiment has since become common enough to show up on regular café menus.

None of it happened by accident, and the science behind it is more mixed than the hype suggests. Here is why so many people started putting butter in their coffee, and what actually happens when they do.

It Started With Yak Butter In Tibet

The trend traces back to entrepreneur Dave Asprey, who visited Tibet in 2009 and came home convinced of the benefits of drinking coffee mixed with yak butter, a traditional high altitude energy drink, according to mindbodygreen.

Back in the United States, he adapted the idea into what became Bulletproof coffee, made with coffee, grass fed butter and MCT oil.

“It’s about how you feel two hours later,” Asprey told Fox News, describing the sustained energy he says the combination provides compared to regular coffee. He built an entire company, along with a broader biohacking and ketogenic diet movement, around that basic premise.

The Promise Behind The Trend

Fans of the drink say the fat and caffeine work together to slow how quickly caffeine gets absorbed, avoiding the sharp energy spike and crash that comes with regular coffee.

The combination is also marketed as appetite suppressing, making it popular among people on low carb or ketogenic diets looking for a breakfast replacement.

The drink fits neatly into keto and intermittent fasting routines specifically, since it delivers fat for sustained energy without adding carbohydrates that would break an overnight fast. That specific niche is largely why it caught on so quickly among people already following those eating patterns.

What Doctors Actually Say About It

Registered dietitian Kayla Kopp has said there simply is not enough research to back up the strongest claims made about Bulletproof coffee, generally recommending people skip the trend, according to Cleveland Clinic.

Two tablespoons of butter alone adds roughly 200 calories and a significant amount of saturated fat to a drink that started out virtually calorie free.

Some people have also reported unusually high cholesterol levels while regularly drinking it, according to Precision Nutrition, with levels dropping back to normal once they stopped.

Anyone with existing heart concerns or high cholesterol is generally advised to approach the trend with real caution.

Butter in coffee was never going to work for everyone, and the research has not caught up to the hype surrounding it.

Whether it earns a permanent spot in a morning routine or gets abandoned after one strange first sip, that seems to be exactly the point of a trend built on personal experimentation in the first place.